Illustration by Lusco y Fusco
Tonight at the Academy Awards, Lady Gaga won Best Song for “Shallow” from the movie “A Star Is Born.” Earlier this month, Gaga, along with Bradley Cooper, won the Grammy for Best Pop Duo or Group Performance, also for “Shallow.” A Star Is Born is a film that, in this writer’s opinion, should’ve won Best Picture at tonight’s Oscars. Here is the touching performance from tonight’s award show…
But it was in her acceptance speech at the Grammys a couple weeks ago that Lady Gaga made a huge splash in mental health circles. Instead of thanking a litany of boring music and film industry types we’ve never heard of, at the Grammys, she chose to speak about mental wellness, citing that the movie touches upon some of those issues:
I just want to say I’m so proud to be part of a movie that addresses mental health issues. They’re so important. And a lot of artists… deal with that. And we got to take care of each other. So, if you see somebody that is hurting, don’t look away. And if you are hurting, even though it might be hard, try to find that bravery within yourself to dive deep and go tell somebody and take them up in your head with you.
Lady Gaga is a pop star provocateur who is no stranger to that which is eccentric and nonconformist. The 32-year-old singer-songwriter is notorious for her oddball red carpet looks and her music, while not particularly avant-garde, is popular to the tune of a $275 million net worth.
The singer and actress has sold 27 million albums and won nine Grammy awards, but the icing on her cake is her philanthropy. Her Born This Way Foundation focuses on halting bullying and championing LGBTQ rights.
Like a Robin Hood in haute couture, Gaga steals from her fortune and gives it to charitable causes, shining a light on movements that are important to her — specifically mental health awareness, which she has called a “crisis of epic proportions.”
Yep, Lady Gaga has a soft spot for us mentally ill folks. As a sufferer of PTSD herself, she empathizes with those who struggle with depression, bipolar, and other mood disorders.
This year’s Grammy Awards wasn’t the first time that Lady Gaga has stood up for mental health awareness. In November, while accepting a Patron of the Artists Awardfrom SAG-AFTRA, she shared some of her own mental health story.
“I began to notice that I would stare off into space and black out for seconds or minutes,” she said onstage in a 25-minute speech. ”These were also symptoms of disassociation and PTSD and I did not have a team that included mental health support.”
In 2014, Lady Gaga revealed that she had been raped at age 19, and she wrote a song and moving music video about it titled “Til It Happens To You” (WARNING: depictions of rape).
Two years later, Gaga revealed on The Today Show that she suffers from PTSD stemming from that sexual assault.
In a cover story for Elle magazine, Gaga described what a PTSD episode feels like for her:
My diaphragm seizes up. Then I have a hard time breathing, and my whole body goes into a spasm. And I begin to cry. That’s what it feels like for trauma victims every day, and it’s…miserable… I always say that trauma has a brain. And it works its way into everything that you do.
During her SAG-AFTRA remarks, Gaga noted that her mental health situation has been dire at times, pointing out that her struggles have evolved into physical chronic pain, suicidal ideation, and “masochistic behavior.”
In other words, she’s been there. She understands us who struggle with mental illness. And she is empathetic.
Gaga ended her speech by declaring, “Let’s change the fucking world!”
I, for one, hope to follow her lead, if on a smaller scale.
