Lady Gaga Says She Was Raped At The Age Of 19
The singer didn't name names, but she denied the claims that it was Dr. Luke who raped her.
By Sadho Ram — 03 Dec 2014, 07:54 PM — Updated over 9 years ago
Lady Gaga, who is 28 years of age, has revealed that she was raped when she was 19 years old by a man she says was 20 years older than her. The singer, who was appearing on US radio host Howard Stern's show, made the claim after the host asked her about the meaning of her controversial song Swine.
While explaining the inspiration for her song, Gaga said:
The song is about rape. The song is about demoralization. The song is about rage and fury and passion and I had a lot of pain that I wanted to release and I said to myself:
'I want to sing this song while I'm ripping hard on a drum kit and then I want to get on a mechanical bull, which is probably one of the most demoralizing things that you can put a female on in her underwear, and I want this chick to throw up on me in front of the world so that I can tell them 'You know what, you can never ever degrade me as much as I could degrade myself and look how beautiful it is when I do.'
After Stern suggested the song alluded to a sexual assault he then asked if she'd been raped by a record producer. She replied:
“I went through some horrific things that I’m able to laugh [at] now, because I’ve gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy and emotional therapy to heal over the years.”
She added: “I was a shell of my former self at one point. I was not myself. To be fair, I was about 19. I went to Catholic school and then all this crazy stuff happened, and I was going, ‘Oh, is this just the way adults are?’ I was very naive.”
theguardian.com
She further said: "It happens every day and it's really scary, and it's sad. It didn't affect me as much as it did about four or five years later. I was so traumatised by it that I was like, 'Keep going' because I just had to get out of there. I wasn't even willing to admit that anything even happened. I don't want to be defined by it."
bbc.co.ukGaga said that she never confronted the person who did it to her
"I think it would terrify me. It would paralyze me."
"I saw him one time in a store and I was so paralysed by fear. It wasn't until I was a little bit older that I went, 'Wow, that was really messed up.'"
"You were 20 years older than me. I was a kid. It took me a long time to feel strong about it.
"I didn't tell anybody, I didn't even tell myself for the longest time."