Lady Gaga reveals she was raped at age 19

During Lady Gaga's visit to Howard Stern's SiriusXM show this week she opened up being sexually abused at the age of 19.

The topic came up after Stern asked about "Swine" and the controversy surrounding Gaga's performance of the song at SXSW back in March, when performance artist Millie Brown vomited neon green paint all over Gaga during her show.

"I wrote a song called 'Swine.' The song is about rape," she said. "The song is about demoralization. The song is about rage and fury and passion, and I had a lot of pain that I wanted to release."

Stern prodded some more ("Were you raped by a record producer?" he asked), and although Gaga tried to push the question aside initially, she eventually started talking candidly about her past without mentioning any names or specifics.

"I went through some horrific things, and I'm able to laugh now, because I've gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy and emotional therapy to heal over the years," she said. "My music's been wonderful for me. But, you know, I was a shell of my former self at one point. I was not myself. To be fair, I was about 19. I went to Catholic school and then all this crazy stuff happened, and I was going, 'Oh, is this just the way adults are?'"

Lady Gaga said the man was 20 years older, revealing that she didn't tell anyone what had happened for a long time.

"It didn't affect me as much right after as it did about four or five years later," she said. "It hit me so hard. I was so traumatized by it that I was like, 'Just keep going,' because I just had to get out of there."

Gaga paid a visit to Stern's show to promote "Cheek to Cheek," her new duets album with Tony Bennett.

Listen to the interview below: