I just never told anyone about my rape for seven years: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga

The music video for Lady Gaga's song 'Till It Happens To You' did grab her audience's attention for showcasing a commonplace issue: campus rape.

Now, the 29-year-old singer, who was nominated for her first Golden Globe award, has revisited a painful moment in her life, opening up about the time she was sexually assaulted as a teenager, a website reported.

During a Q&A for the campus rape documentary, 'The Hunting Ground', the 'Poker Face' songstress said, "Didn't tell anyone for, I think, seven years."

She added that she didn't know how to even deal with it saying, "I didn't know how to not blame myself or think it was my fault. It's something that really changed my life, it changed who I was completely. It changed my body, it changed my thoughts."

She said that in addition to immediate physical pain and lasting mental and emotional effects, she has physically re-experienced the trauma through the years.

Speaking about the ideas of guilt and self-blame, Gaga said, "After it happened, I was like, ‘But what did I do in my life to bring it upon myself?' Maybe there was some sort of religious guilt attached to it, that I had somehow inspired the violence," she said.

She further said that for her, because of the way she dresses and the fact that she is provocative as a person, she thought she had brought it upon herself in some way. "I just never even told anyone," she said.