Lady Gaga paused her concert to speak out against the nation-wide abortion bans in a powerful moment during the Washington DC gig on Monday night.
The singer, 36, addressed the audience at the Chromatica Ball tour show before dedicating her hit Edge Of Glory to ‘every woman in America’.
Gaga’s moving words came after she revealed last year she suffered a ‘total psychotic break’ when she fell pregnant after being raped by a producer aged 19.
Powerful: Lady Gaga paused her concert to speak out against the nation-wide abortion bans in a powerful moment during the Washington DC gig on Monday night (pictured on her Chromatica Ball Tour on Thursday)
The American star, who said she was ‘dropped off pregnant’ by the man who raped her on a street corner, said she ‘prays the country will speak up’.
Speaking to the crowd, she said: ‘I would like to dedicate this song to every woman in America. For every woman who now has to worry about her body if she gets pregnant.’
The A Star Is Born actress continued: ‘I pray that this country will speak up, that we will stick together, and that we will not stop until it’s right!’
Moving: The singer, 36, addressed the audience at the Chromatica Ball tour show before dedicating her hit Edge Of Glory to ‘every woman in America’ (pictured on Thursday)
Gaga, who was visibly emotional during the performance, said: ‘You just got to keep believing it’s gonna be okay.
At the end of her slowed-down version of the track, she added: ‘I didn’t mean to be a downer, but there’s some s**t that’s more important than show business.’
Back in 2019, Gaga spoke out alongside Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Lizzo and more as part of Planned Parenthood’s #BansOffMyBody campaign.
Candid: Gaga’s moving words came after she revealed last year she suffered a ‘total psychotic break’ when she fell pregnant after being raped by a producer aged 19
In a post referring to a then-new law signed by the Alabama government, Gaga wrote: ‘It is an outrage to ban abortion in Alabama period. And all the more heinous that it excludes those that have been raped or are experiencing incest non-consensual or not.’
‘This is a travesty and I pray for all these women and young girls who will suffer at the hands of this system.’
Gaga spoke about her traumatic experience during an appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s new Apple TV+ mental health docuseries, The Me You Can’t See.
Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, recalled: ‘I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, “Take your clothes off”.’
‘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 don’t even remember.’
Trauma: Gaga spoke about her traumatic experience during an appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s new Apple TV+ mental health docuseries, The Me You Can’t See
Gaga, who has never mentioned the producer’s name for fear of seeing him again, said she blacked out amid the assault, and purged herself by being physically sick for an extended period as a way of coping with the pain.
‘I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after, 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,’ she said.
She said she was ‘at [her] parents’ house amid the illness because she was ‘being abused’ and ‘locked away in a studio for months.’
Gaga said the incident left her scarred physically and emotionally, which lingers to this day.
The singer said a doctor advised her to see a psychiatrist for her chronic pain, leading to her diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Heartbreaking: Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, recalled: ‘I was 19 years old and a producer said to me, “Take your clothes off” (pictured in 2005 aged 19)
Heartbreaking: Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, recalled: ‘I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, “Take your clothes off”
She continued: ‘Years later I went to a hospital and they brought a psychiatrist in and I said “bring me a real doctor, why is there a psych here I can’t feel my body?”
‘First I felt full-on pain then I went numb and then I was sick for weeks and weeks after and I realised that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on the corner, my parents house, because I was vomiting.
‘I’d been abused, locked away in a studio for months.
‘I wanna be able to tell everyone watching that I dry my tears now and move on, and you can come back from things like that.
‘But when it hits you rally hard it can change you. I couldn’t feel anything, I disassociated, my brain went offline but you are in an ultra state of paranoia.’
Distressing: In the chat, the superstar singer said she felt physical numbness in the wake of the attack to cope with the trauma
She continued: ‘I had a total psychotic break, and for a couple years, I was not the same girl. 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.’
Reflecting on her ongoing struggle, Gaga said: ‘It’s a real thing to feel like there is a black cloud that is following you wherever you go, telling you that you are worthless and should die.
‘I used to scream and throw myself against a wall, and you know why its not good to cut, throw yourself against a wall and self-harm because it makes you feel worse.’
She also said that amid her emotional journey, she’s recently had to deal with impulses towards self-harm, explaining the rationale behind it.
Inner turmoil: Gaga said she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as she struggled to cope with the trauma in the years after the attack (pictured in 2009)
She said: ‘Even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is getting triggered once to feel bad. And when I say I feel bad, I mean I want to cut.
‘Think about dying. Wondering if I’m ever going to do it. I learned all the ways to pull myself out of it.’
‘You know why it’s not good to cut?’ she said. ‘You know why it’s not good to throw yourself against the wall? You know why it’s not good to self-harm? Because it makes you feel worse.
‘You think you’re going to feel better because you’re showing somebody, “Look, I’m in pain.” It doesn’t help.’
Ongoing battle: Gaga opened up on how the incident left her scarred physically and emotionally, which lingers to this day
The process to recovery was a lengthy one, with Gaga confessing that she was still working through her breakdown when she accepted her Oscar for A Star Is Born in 2019.
‘It all started to slowly change, it took two and a half years to pull myself out of it’, she explained. ‘In that time I won an Oscar – and nobody knew!’
Offering advice to anyone in a similar situation who may be struggling, she said: ‘It’s so important to surround yourself with at least one person who validates you. There is a way to regulate yourself.’
Revealing how she helps herself, Gaga explained: ‘If I focus and I go “ok I’m going to wake up and do therapy or grounding or gratitude and I’m going to move my body and eat and do things I know are healthy for my body. If I do enough of these steps in a row, I keep going.
‘I go “Stefani be brave, you gotta be braver”. And then before I know it I’m standing in my backyard and I go “Ok I’m back”‘.
Despite feeling in a better place now, she admitted that she still struggles with her mental health, warning that an easy fix doesn’t exist.
Devastating: ‘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’
She explained: ‘The line that I walk it’s actually feeling like I want to cut myself and feeling like I don’t, are actually real close together.
‘Everybody thinks it’s going to be like a straight line, that it’s like every other virus, that you get sick and then you get cured, you know? It’s not like that.
‘And actually, I think that traps people because you get frustrated with yourself, “why am I not getting better, what is wrong with me?”
‘And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with you. But there is something that’s not firing right, and that’s not easy’.
Gaga insisted she isn’t looking for pity and just wants to tell her story to help others.
She said: ‘I don’t tell this story for my own self-service, because, to be honest, it’s hard to tell. I feel a lot of shame about it. How do I explain to people that I have privilege, I’ve got money, I’ve got power, and I’m miserable? How do you do that?
‘I’m not here to tell my story to you because I want anybody to cry for me. I’m good. But open your heart up for somebody else. Because I’m telling you, I’ve been through it and people need help. So, that’s part of my healing, being able to talk to you.’
Harrowing: She said: ‘Even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is getting triggered once to feel bad Think about dying. Wondering if I’m ever going to do it’