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Lady Gaga Opens Up About Being Raped Repeatedly As A Teenager

By Akinwale Akinyoade

07 January 2020   |   12:09 pm

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Lady Gaga has a number of achievements to her name, from releasing chart-topping songs, starring in award-winning films, to winning numerous awards, one can argue she has achieved it all in her career. However, there is pain behind Gaga's fame that many may not know about, the superstar entertainer struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as…

Lady Gaga | Photo: Billboard

Lady Gaga has a number of achievements to her name, from releasing chart-topping songs, starring in award-winning films, to winning numerous awards, one can argue she has achieved it all in her career.

However, there is pain behind Gaga’s fame that many may not know about, the superstar entertainer struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of multiple sexual assaults when she was 19.

During a chat with media mogul, Oprah Winfrey and an audience of 15,000 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the pop star opened up about her challenges with mental health as well as her day-to-day battles with chronic pain and fibromyalgia.

The talk was part Winfrey and WW’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus Tour. Speaking about an episode she described as a “psychotic break”, Gaga revealed:

“I was raped repeatedly when I was 19 years old,” she said. “And I also developed PTSD as a result of being raped and not being able to process that trauma.

“I did not have anyone to help me, I didn’t have a therapist, I did not have a psychiatrist, I did not have a doctor help me through it; I just, all of a sudden, became a star, and was travelling the world going from hotel rooms to . . . stage. I never dealt with it.”

Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey | Access

Lady Gaga said she wanted to share so that people could have some insight into her personal experience with it and how she coped. The talk also has hopes of erasing the stigma that often comes with talking about mental health.

Speaking further, she said:

“My whole body started tingling and I started screaming. I was in a hospital,” she said. “It’s very difficult to describe what it feels like other than that you first start to tingle from head to toe and then you go numb.”

Gaga noted that while some people may find the choice controversial, she decided to take medication to help with her symptoms.

“The brain goes, ‘That’s enough, I don’t want to think about this anymore. I don’t want to feel this anymore.’ Boom. You break from reality as you know it,” she added. “I know this is controversial in a lot of ways, but medicine really helped me.”

Gaga continued, saying that she’s come to accept her health conditions and everything that she’s had to endure, including surviving sexual assault. She calls it “radical acceptance.”

“This happened for a reason. All the things I’ve been through,” she said. “I was supposed to go through this. Even the rape—all of it. I radically accepted they happened because God was saying to me, ‘I’m gonna show you pain. And then you’re going to help other people who are in pain because you’re going to understand it.'”

Known for her unconventionality, provocative work and visual experimentation, Gaga is the first person to win an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award in one year thanks to her performance in the critically acclaimed musical drama A Star Is Born released in 2018.