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(WARNING: Please note this article contains content around the subject of rape that might be triggering to some.)
Cape Town – Starting her 2020 speaking tour – her first arena tour in five years to focus on mental health – Oprah invited none other than Lady Gaga on stage in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to kick things off.
According to Rolling Stone, their hour-long discussion covered many topics and how they affected the Shallow singer's life. She opened up about everything from her childhood to her career, before divulging something to the talk show host. "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," she said.
Lady Gaga added that she was raped by someone she knew, and because it was around the same time her career took off, she didn't have anyone around to turn to. She just kept going.
"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," she said.
Gaga went on to say mental health is, therefore, something we should figure out together, and talk about. After admitting she used to self-harm, sometimes by cutting, she also said it's important to have mental health classes in schools.
"All the times, you were beaten up, and you kept getting up – what kept you getting up?" Oprah asked Gaga in the interview. "All of you," Gaga replied, pointing to the crowd before turning to Oprah. "And women like you."
"Faith, inspiration, hope, and I also have to say… medicine."
Gaga said, while she realises it's a controversial topic, we need to break the stigma around getting help.
"What moves me so much in this space and why I want to work so heavily and much more thoroughly in through it in the future is that not everybody has access to these things, and not everybody has the money for these things. And I want the money for it, I want the best doctors in the world, and I want us to understand the brain so we can all get on the same page about it so that Gen Z does not have to deal with this the way we are now. Mental health is a crisis."
Oprah later took to Instagram to thank the A Star Is Born actor for being so vulnerable.In a clip, she goes to Gaga after the show, and the two hold each other and cry. "You were so amazing," Oprah tells her.
In another moment, Gaga says, "We took a big bite of bravery together," before Oprah responds, "We didn't even take a little bite."
"No, that was the whole meal," Gaga says.
SEE THE CLIP HERE:
(Photo: Getty Images)
