35-year-old Grammy and Oscar-winning artist Lady Gaga recently opened up in a documentary about the trauma of being sexually assaulted and raped by a music producer at the age of 19 when she was just starting out in the industry.
She recalled how the industry producer, who was 20 years older than her, threatened her to strip, TOI reports. She stated, “I was 19 years old and I was working in the business and a producer said to me: ‘Take your clothes off.’ I said no. And I left.”
She continued recounting the painful ordeal saying, “And they told me they were going to burn all my music and they didn’t stop asking me and then I just froze and I just… I don’t even remember.”
She mentioned that she is not comfortable naming her assailant, and would never reveal it in public stating, “I do not ever want to face that person again.”
She also opened up on how the sexual assault led to unwanted pregnancy and the physical toll it further took on her, “First I felt full-on pain, then I went numb. And then I was sick for weeks and weeks after and I realized that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parent’s house, ’cause I was vomiting and sick, ’cause I had been being abused. I was locked away in a studio for months.”
“I had a total psychotic break, and for a couple of years, I was not the same girl. The way that I feel when I feel pain was how I felt after I was raped. I’ve had so many MRIs and scans where they don’t find nothing. But your body remembers,” she stated.
She further explained, “Even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is getting triggered once to feel bad. And when I say feel bad, I mean want to cut, think about dying, wondering if I’m ever gonna do it,” Gaga pointed out, adding: “You get frustrated with yourself, ‘Why am I not getting better? What’s wrong with me?’ And you know what, there’s nothing wrong with you, but there is something that’s not firing right.”
As per a report in NDTV, it was only years later that she realized that she was suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after she was admitted to a hospital after an anxiety attack. She said, “It’s like your brain goes offline and you don’t know why no one else is panicking but you’re in an ultra state of paranoia. It’s really a very real thing to feel like there’s a black cloud that is following you wherever you go telling you that you’re worthless and should die.”
It was reportedly after 2 years that she got the urge to harm herself under control. She confirmed, “I learned all the ways to pull myself out of it.”
She concluded her story with an important message of empathy, “Open your heart up for somebody else, because I’m telling you, I’ve been through it and people need help. That’s part of my healing, is being able to talk to you.”
More power to you, Lady Gaga!
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