Lady Gaga reveals she was raped as a teenager: “It changed who I was completely.”
Last year Lady Gaga opened up about raped as a teenager by a producer she was working with. At a TimesTalk panel yesterday to promote The Hunting Ground, the singer elaborated on her experience, sharing how difficult it was to overcome.
“Because of the way that I dress, and the way that I’m provocative as a person, I thought that I had brought it on myself in some way, that it was my fault,” Gaga told the panel.
“I didn’t tell anyone for, I think, seven years,” she added, according to a report by Us Weekly. “I didn’t know how to think about it. I didn’t know how to accept it. I didn’t know how not to blame myself, or think it was my fault. It was something that really changed my life. It changed who I was completely.”
The singer added that after she was raped she struggled with the physical trauma.
When you go through a trauma like that, it doesn’t just have the immediate physical ramifications on you,” Gaga said. “When you re-experience it through the years, it can trigger patterns in your body of physical distress. A lot of people suffer from not only mental and emotional pain, but also physical pain of being abused, raped, or traumatized in some type of way.”
Lady Gaga pointed out that she was opening up to encourage others to discuss rape in the world. “We don’t want you to keep your pain inside and let it rot like an old apple on your counter, you know?” she said. “It’s like, just get rid of all that trash. Let’s get rid of it together.”
