Pop icon Lady Gaga has revealed she has suffered from a mental health condition after being raped as a teen.
The singer – whose real name is Stefani Germanotta – first revealed five years ago that she was raped at age 19 by an unnamed record producer.
Speaking on Oprah Winfrey’s 2020 Vision arena tour in Florida on Saturday, Gaga said: “I was raped repeatedly when I was 19 years old and I also developed PTSD as a result of being raped and also not processing that trauma.”
Lady Gaga said she had also developed fibromyalgia, a condition characterised by chronic widespread pain, which also affects stamina, sleep, and memory.
“I all of a sudden became a star and was travelling the world going from hotel room to garage to limo to stage, and I never dealt with it, and then all of a sudden I started to experience this incredible intense pain throughout my entire body that mimicked the illness I felt after I was raped.”
“What’s interesting about it is that I’ve found through neuropsych research and my relationship with my doctors that fibromyalgia can be treated through mental health therapy,” she added. “And mental health is a medical condition, it should be treated as a medical condition. It should not be ignored.”
She also addressed widespread rumours about her romance with A Star Is Born co-star Bradley Cooper. The two shared palpable on-screen chemistry, by general agreement, and made a steamy Oscars performance last February.
The fact that both broke up with their partners only fanned the rumour to a blaze. But the 33-year-old pop star said that her ‘romance’ with Cooper was a well-orchestrated stunt.
‘We did a really good job at fooling everyone,” she boasted. ‘We created that.’ Oprah added: ‘It wouldn’t have worked if you didn’t believe they weren’t in love.”
