Lady Gaga As Reveals She Was Raped As A Teenager

The Artpop star admitted that she was assaulted at the age of 19 by a man 20 years older than her, as she spoke during a US radio interview with America’s Got Talent judge Howard Stern.

"I went through some horrific things,” she said.

“I'm able to laugh now because I've gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy and emotional therapy to heal over the years, my music has been wonderful for me.

"I was a shell of my former self at one point. I was not myself.

"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.

"It happens every day and it's really scary and it's sad. It didn't affect me as much right after as it did about four or five years later.

"It hit me so hard. I was so traumatised by it that I was like 'just keep going' because I just had to get out of there."

Asked why she never confronted her attacker, she continued: "I don't know how I would react. I think it would terrify me. It would paralyse me. I saw him one time in a store and I was so paralysed by fear."

Gaga – real name Stefani Germanotta – added that it took her a long time to speak up and seek help.

“I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't tell anybody,” she said.

“And I didn't even tell myself for the longest time. And then I was like, ‘You know what? All this drinking and all this nonsense, you have to go to the source, otherwise it just won't go away. It will not go away’.

"I don't want to be defined by it. I'll be damned if somebody is going to say that every creatively intelligent thing that I ever did is all boiled down to one d***head that did that to me."

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