Lady Gaga Got Heartbreakingly Candid About Being Raped as a Teenager

She shared that she got pregnant while trapped in her cycle of abuse.

Warning: This post contains topics of sexual assault, rape, abuse, and self harm.

In the premiere episode of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey’s new Apple TV docuseries, The Me You Can’t See, Lady Gaga opened up about her severe struggles with her mental health after she was raped at 19 years old by a music producer.

“I was 19 years old and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off.’ And I said no,” Gaga, who uses her real name Stefani Germanotta in the episode, said. “And I left, and they told me they were going to burn all of my music. And they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop asking me, and I just froze and I don’t even remember.”

And I will not say his name, Gaga continued. I understand this Me Too movement. I understand that some people feel really comfortable with this. And I do not. I do not ever want to face that person again.

Gaga has been open about her experience with this music producer for years, opening up to Vogue in 2018 about how she believes her PTSD caused by her abuse triggered her fibromyalgia diagnosis. However, in The Me You Can’t See, Gaga went into more detail, explaining that she ended up getting pregnant during this cycle of abuse.

“First I felt full-on pain, then I went numb,” she said of the physical pain she began experiencing years after her abuse. “And then I was sick for weeks and weeks and 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 parents’ house because I was vomiting and sick. Because I’d been being abused. I was locked away in a studio for months.”

Gaga developed self-harm habits hoping someone would notice her pain, noting that she had a “total psychotic break” that affected her for years after the abuse ended. “You think you’re gonna feel better ’cause you’re showing somebody, ‘Hey, look I’m in pain,'” she said. “It doesn’t help. I always tell people: Tell somebody. Don’t show somebody.”

Years later, PTSD still affects everything she does. Even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is getting triggered once to feel bad, Gaga continued. And when I say feel bad, I mean want to cut, think about dying, wondering if I’m ever gonna do it.

“This system is so abusive and it’s so dangerous,” she added, later noting that she’s finally developed healthy methods to deal with her trauma responses. Once therapy and focusing on health entered the picture, “It all started to slowly change,” Gaga said.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or speak with someone via the virtual chat on the RAINN website.

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