Rape victim, pregnant, kidnapped by her producer and attacker, Lady Gaga tells about her ordeal

This Thursday, May 21, 2021, singer Lady Gaga was invited to the show “The Me You Can’t See”, produced by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry on Apple TV. She confided in the rape she suffered.

It was in a poignant interview with Oprah Winfrey that Lady Gaga spoke about the rape she suffered at the age of 19. Now 35, she claims she was raped by a music producer, but refuses to name him. “I never want to face this person again”, she explains.

However, she wanted to testify to the horror she experienced at the time. If, in 2014, she had already mentioned these traumas in an interview, Lady Gaga has, this time, decided to tell this painful experience in more detail. At 19, she became pregnant with her attacker, who not only kidnapped her, but also threatened her. “I was locked in a studio for months. (…) He told me he was going to burn my music if I didn’t undress”, she explains

A psychological and physical pressure that was not without consequences for the rest of his life. Today, the interpreter of “Bad Romance” suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and fibromyalgia, a disease that causes pain throughout the body. Years after this assault, Lady Gaga therefore suffered recurrent and intense pain: “I realized it was the same pain I felt when the person who raped me left me pregnant at my parents’ house. I was throwing up and I was sick because I had been abused.”, she explains. Today, after a long diagnosis, Lady Gaga tries to rebuild herself and live with this trauma: “I’ve had so many MRIs and scans… They couldn’t find anything, but my body remembered. It’s like your brain is disconnecting. You wonder why no one else is panicking, but you are. in a state of total paranoia. ” If the singer hesitated for a long time to speak about it, for fear of being stigmatized, her speaking today reasons with power.

Talking about gender-based and sexual violence in the music industry is taking shape today. In the US, artists like Gaga, Taylor Swift and Kesha courageously denounced the serious attacks and the pressures they were subjected to. In France, the #MeTooMusic movement works to stem the misogynistic practices of the sector, in particular thanks to the testimonies of the victims.

Melanie Bonvard

Mélanie deciphers pop culture from a societal angle and questions the female gaze in films or even series, because everything is a question of gaze, she …