Lady Gaga says she suffered a “total psychotic break” after being left pregnant by her rapist.
The Rain On Me singer features alongside Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey in the Apple TV documentary series, The Me You Can’t See, which sees a number of stars discussing their mental health struggles.
Gaga says she was 19 when a producer threatened to burn her music if she did not take her clothes off.
Fighting back tears, the 35-year-old singer said: “And they didn’t stop asking me, and then I just froze, and I just – I don’t even remember.”
She said she cannot name her alleged attacker, adding: “I do not ever want to face that person again.”
Gaga, who first spoke publicly of being raped in 2014, described an incident years later when she went to hospital for acute pain and numbness and was surprised to be treated by a psychiatrist.
“First I felt full-on pain, then I went numb,” she said. “And then I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after, and I realised that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parents’ house because I was vomiting and sick.
“Because I’d been abused. I was locked away in a studio for months.”
The singer went on to discuss how trauma can change you as a person and she was not the same after being sexually assaulted.
“I had a total psychotic break, and for a couple years, I was not the same girl,” she said.
“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.”
Gaga said she has felt like “there’s a black cloud that is following you wherever you go telling you that you are worthless and should die”.
And discussing her self-harm, she said: “You know why it’s not good to cut? You know why it’s not good to throw yourself against the wall? You know why it’s not good to self-harm? Because it makes you feel worse. You think you’re going to feel better because you’re showing somebody, ‘Look, I’m in pain’. It doesn’t help.
“I always tell people, ‘tell somebody, don’t show somebody.’”
Gaga described the improvement of her mental health as “a slow rise” but warned it was not a “straight line”.
She said: “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.”
The chart-topping singer said she gradually learned how to cope with unwanted and damaging emotions, but it was a slow process that took two-and-a-half years.
Asked what she was doing during that time, Gaga quipped: “I won an Oscar.”
She won best original song in 2019 for Shallow, a track from A Star Is Born.
The Me You Can’t See is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
- Rape Crisis services for women and girls who have been raped or have experienced sexual violence - 0808 802 9999
- Survivors UK offers support for men and boys - 0203 598 3898