Tragic Things You Never Knew About Lady Gaga's Career
Lady Gaga seemed to know she was born to be a star at a young age. When her mom, Cynthia Germanotta, presented her with the 2015 Billboard Woman of The Year award, she recalled how 1-year-old Gaga leaned on their piano for support as she started walking. Her passion for music sparked when she accidentally played a few keys. Then, the "Poker Face" hitmaker returned daily to try her little hands at the instrument.
While her parents recognized her passions and built her up, her peers tried to tear her self-esteem down. Speaking to "CBS This Morning" in 2019, Germanotta shared that her daughter's middle school peers bullied her because she didn't fit in with them. "Stefani was very unique and that wasn't always appreciated by her peers and, as a result, she went through a lot of difficult times," the mother-of-two recalled. "Humiliated, taunted, isolated. When you're a young woman, this really severely impacts you," (via USA Today). Germanotta recalled that the bullying dulled her daughter's individualistic spark.
Nonetheless, she didn't let the doubters deter her from her dreams and marched on to NYU's Tisch School to study music. In her 2009 Elle interview, Gaga shared that she took a leap of faith and dropped out in her sophomore year because she believed she could learn more about music by simply living in New York. Eventually, the gamble paid off and she forged a massively successful music career, racked up a stunning net worth, and pushed the boundaries in Hollywood. However, her triumph came with its own challenges.
Lady Gaga was sexually assaulted when she was 19
In Oprah Winfrey's "The Me You Can't See" docuseries, Lady Gaga shared that she was sexually assaulted by a music producer when she was 19. The rape had also left her pregnant. The "Million Reasons" singer refused to name her assaulter because she didn't want to have any contact with them. Gaga recalled that a few years after her rape, she endured a physical condition that caused her to feel a searing pain for a stretch of time, followed by complete numbness and then an unexplainable sickness.
Eventually, the Grammy winner realized that her sickness was mimicking the same feelings that her 19-year-old self endured after her assault. Gaga remembered the emotional and physical pain from her sexual assault led her to a "psychotic break," explaining, "The way that I feel when I feel pain was how I felt after I was raped. I've had so many MRIs and scans where they don't find nothing. But your body remembers. I couldn't feel anything, I disassociated. It's like your brain goes offline."
The singer-songwriter shared that her self-esteem plummeted, and she didn't feel like living anymore. She also admitted to self-harming near the time of the interview. Gaga asserted that recovery wasn't a linear process, admitting that she continued to battle suicidal thoughts and had to try to resist the urge to self-harm on days when it was all too much to bear.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Her fame worsened her depression
After Lady Gaga released "Chromatica" in 2020, she told People that the album was born during a dark period in her life. "I used to wake up in the morning, and I would realize I was 'Lady Gaga.' And then I became very depressed and sad, and I didn't want to be myself," she recalled. "I felt threatened by the things my career brought into my life and the pace of my life." As a result, the star went through an extended period where she wasn't motivated to function but eventually started writing to share her feelings with the world.
Likewise, when Gaga sat down with "CBS Sunday Mornings," she shared that her public persona felt like her toughest foe for quite some time. The "John Wayne" songstress admitted that she started to feel more like an "object" than a real human being because of how comfortable people felt getting in her personal space without consent. She also felt like her fame prevented her from catching some quality downtime with her family because the spotlight would always turn to her during conversations.
Gaga chronicled grapples with fame through the chorus of the song "911" off her 2020 release. Ultimately, Gaga was happy to share that she had fallen in love with her public persona all over again because she saw her as an outlet for expressing her feelings through her music.
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
She had to cancel some shows of her world tour because of severe pain
In February 2018, Lady Gaga took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce that she couldn't perform the final 10 shows of her Joanne Tour because of "severe pain." A year prior, the "Shallow" singer tweeted that she had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes pain all over the body, according to the NHS. Gaga documented her struggles with the condition in her 2017 documentary "Gaga: Five Foot Two."
In a few scenes, the Grammy winner had to pause working to recover from debilitating muscle spams. Even her team members tried helping her by massaging and icing her muscles. When Gaga spoke to Vogue in 2018, she voiced her frustrations surrounding public perception of the syndrome, admitting, "I get so irritated with people who don't believe fibromyalgia is real. People need to be more compassionate. Chronic pain is no joke. And it's every day waking up not knowing how you're going to feel." The "Applause" hitmaker was happy to share that her medical team had helped ease her symptoms so she could get back to performing.
In an interview for Oprah Winfrey's 2020 Vision tour, Gaga shared that she powered through her previous tour despite being in debilitating pain. She also admitted that she didn't seek therapy or medication to ease her symptoms back then. Before Gaga took the stage at her first show at her Chromatica Ball tour in 2022, she remembered the sad days when she believed she would have to quit performing.
Lady Gaga was body-shamed after her Super Bowl performance
Lady Gaga gave the performance of a lifetime during the Super Bowl 2017 halftime show. However, a few social media users didn't acknowledge her talent and instead body-shamed her. The "House of Gucci" star wouldn't let the bullies get to her again, so she took to Instagram to write a heartfelt message. "I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I'm proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too," she asserted.
Gaga reminded her fans to stay true to themselves and urged them against changing aspects of their personality and body to get ahead in life. Speaking on "On Air With Ryan Seacrest," the Golden Globe winner shared that she chose to speak up because she didn't want her fans to listen to her critics and see their bodies in a negative light. Gaga also shared a similar message when she spoke at the It's Our Turn conference at a high school.
She told the impressionable audience that her appearance in music videos and magazines was edited to meet social beauty standards. Gaga urged them not to believe every body they saw in the media. The "Just Dance" songstress remembered she struggled with body issues during high school because she wanted a different physique. She also admitted that she "used to throw up all the time" during those days and only broke out of the habit as her career blossomed because her stomach acids prevented her from giving a good vocal performance, per BBC.
She was grieving in the final frame of A Star Is Born
When Lady Gaga sat down with Zane Lowe for an Apple TV interview in 2018, she shared that her emotional performance of "I'll Never Love Again" in "A Star Is Born" was inspired by real-life events. The actor recalled that when she was on set, she got a call informing her that her friend, Sonya Durham, was about to die after years of cancer treatments. Although Gaga rushed to see her friend immediately, she had passed away a few minutes before she got there.
After grieving with Durham's family members, Gaga admitted to her friend's widower that she had no idea what to do. Durham's husband urged her to return to set and perform her heart out because his wife would've wanted nothing more. "[Durham] gave me a tragic gift that day, and I took it with me and I went back to set and I sang ["I'll Never Love Again"] for [Bradley Cooper's character] and her." Gaga shared that her co-star, Cooper was gentle with her during the filming and reassured her that she wouldn't have to do too many takes, but she insisted on performing because that's all her heart desired.
The singer-songwriter had previously written about her experience watching Durham deal with cancer in "Grigio Girls" off her 2016 release "Joanne." According to Yahoo! Gaga shared that the track detailed how she and her friends met up to cry about Durham's diagnosis without her because they wanted to keep a brave face in her presence.