Lady Gaga has spoken out about her private ordeal and anguish over being raped as a teenager by a music producer. Gaga, real name Stefani Germanotta, admitted earlier today on The Howard Stern Show that she was attacked when she was 19, and has had to "rely on a lot of physical and mental therapy" to help her through the horrific ordeal.
Gaga revealed: "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. My music's been wonderful for me. But, you know, 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 a Catholic school, then all this crazy stuff happened and I was going, 'Oh, is this just the way adults are?'...I was very naive."
She then went on to discuss her fears of confronting her attacker, who is 20 years older than her: "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. Because it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I went, 'Wow, that was really messed up.' I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't tell anybody. 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.'"
Wishing you lots of love Gaga.