Lady Gaga Discusses Dealing With Pregnancy And PTSD After Being Raped At 19
The incident left her with chronic physical pain.
Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock Lady Gaga is opening up about the aftermath of being raped by a music producer when she was 19.
The Grammy-winning artist appeared on the premiere episode of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey’s “The Me You Can’t See” to talk about her experience of PTSD, a mental health crisis which she called a "psychotic break” and becoming pregnant after the assault.
Gaga was emotional throughout the interview as she disclosed a harrowing account of the attack.
"I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, 'Take your clothes off,'" she said.
"And I said no. And I left, and they told me they were going to burn all of my music. And they didn't stop. They didn't stop asking me, and I just froze and I just — I don't even remember."
Gaga revealed she became pregnant after she was raped.
Gaga opened up about the long-term mental health impacts of the incident, which she says manifested as physical sickness and chronic pain.
The culmination of this trauma and the discovery that she was pregnant invoke a physical pain that followed her even years later.
She recalled going to the hospital several years after the attack for pain and numbness before realizing that this was connected to her rape.
“I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after,” she says. “And I realized that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner at my parents' house because I was vomiting and sick.”
Did Lady Gaga have a baby?
Lady Gaga does not have any children that we are aware of.
Gaga didn’t go into detail about the pregnancy or the identity of her rapist. She said she respects survivors who name their abusers but said, “I do not ever want to face that person again.”
She has been understandably private about certain aspects of her survival story, making the decision to not disclose the aftermath of the rape or her pregnancy.
Gaga did, however, point to the added physical trauma of rape-related pregnancy that only compounded her emotional trauma.
“It changed who I was completely. It changed my body, it changed thoughts,” she said.
In a separate interview with Oprah in 2020, she also discussed this pain.
“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.”
One-third of rape victims experience post-traumatic stress disorder, making them 5.5 times more likely to experience this mental illness than the general population.
In addition, almost 3 million women in the U.S. have experienced rape-related pregnancy.
Lady Gaga has condemned bans on abortions in the case of rape.
Gaga is an outspoken critic of anti-abortion legislation. She took a stab at a 2019 Alabama law that effectively banned abortion in all but a few cases.
The law, which allows abortion in cases where pregnancy is a risk to a mother’s life, forbids abortion in the case of rape.
Gaga labeled the ban an “outrage” and a “travesty.”
“And all the more heinous that it excludes those [who] have been raped or are experiencing incest non-consensual or not,” she added.
Kesha’s lawyer alleged Dr. Luke assaulted Lady Gaga.
In 2014, after Gaga first came forward about experiencing sexual assault, a lawyer representing singer Kesha accused a music producer, Dr. Luke, of also abusing Gaga.
Kesha was embroiled in a high-profile case against Dr. Luke after accusing him of raping her on multiple occasions.
Gaga denied the claim that she, too, was a victitm of Dr. Luke.
But, in 2019, Gaga testified that she had worked with Dr. Luke and explained that she'd been informed about the alleged assault of Kesha by Kesha herself. The two women had met at Luke’s home studio where Kesha was wearing nothing but her underwear.
“I made my view of him and his reputation when I saw her in that back room. That was an image that — of something that happened to me, and I felt and knew in my heart that she was telling the truth, and I believe her,” she told a courtroom.
Gaga plans to become a mother in the future.
The "A Star Is Born" actor has shown resilience after coming forward about her abuse and subsequent trauma but has shared in the pastt that she does plan to become a mother on her own terms.
In 2020, she said she was “excited” by the prospect of marriage and parenthood.
“I look forward to being a mom. Isn't it incredible what we can do? We can hold a human inside and grow it. Then it comes out, and it's our job to keep it alive,” she added.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.