Lady Gaga Talks On Her Teenage Rape Incident Saying She Blamed Herself

Sad experience no one should have to go through.

Even though Grammy award winner, Lady Gaga has already recorded the emotional ballad “Til It Happens to You” to promote the horrific documentary The Hunting Ground, which exposes the atrocities of campus rape on Thursday, Dec. 10, the Golden Globe-nominated actress and singer, 29, got candid about her own experience with rape as a teenager during a TimesTalks session for the film in NYC.

“I didn't tell anyone for I think seven years,” Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, told the panel of women. “I didn't know how to think about it. I didn't know how to accept it. I didn't know how not to blame myself, or think it was my fault. It was something that really changed my life. It changed who I was completely.”

Her pain wasn’t just emotional. The “Applause” singer also noted, “It changed my body.”

“When you go through a trauma like that, it doesn't just have the immediate physical ramifications on you,” she elaborated. “For many people it has almost like trauma. When you re-experience it throughout the years after it, it can trigger patterns in your body of physical distress, so a lot of people suffer from not only mental and emotional pain, but also physical pain of being abused, raped, or traumatized in some type of way.”

Being in an industry that’s focused on looks and that often sexualizes women, Lady Gaga admitted to blaming herself for the rape.

“Because of the way that I dress, and the way that I'm provocative as a person, I thought that I had brought it on myself in some way,” she said. “That it was my fault.”

 But right now, she has learned to blame the attacker and not herself.
source: US Weekly