Lady Gaga has revealed that she was raped at 19 by a music producer who “dropped [her] off pregnant on a corner” following months of abuse.
The pop star and Oscar winner spoke through tears as she recalled her trauma during an appearance on The Me You Can’t See, a new mental-health docuseries starring and co-created by Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey.
In the show’s first episode, Gaga says that she has self-harmed since she was “really young” and that many of her mental health struggles stem from trauma she experienced as an aspiring musician.
“I was 19 years old and I was working in the business and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off’,” Gaga remembers. “I said no, and I left, and they told me they were gonna burn all my music. And they didn’t stop… they didn’t stop asking me and I just froze and I just… I don’t even remember.”
As she broke down in tears, Gaga explained that she will never name the producer in question.
“I understand this #MeToo movement, I understand that some people feel really comfortable with this, and I do not,” she continued. “I do not ever want to face that person again. This system is so abusive, it’s so dangerous.”
Gaga added that, years later, she experienced a “total psychotic break” and was in an “ultra state of paranoia” that led her to cancel numerous dates of a world tour. She then realised it was resurfaced trauma from her sexual abuse.
“I [couldn’t] feel my own body,” she recalled. “First I felt full-on pain, then I felt numb, and then I was sick for weeks after. I realised that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner [by] my parent’s house, because I was vomiting and sick. Because I had been being abused, and I was locked away in a studio for months.”
Gaga said that it took her two and a half years to recover, but that it takes just “getting triggered once” for her to slip back into feelings of physical and emotional pain.