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Lady Gaga was interviewed by Oprah in the new issue of Elle magazine and the conversation they had was a particularly open one.
Both are advocates for mental health and Gaga spoke frankly about her struggles over the years and how she has used their pain to try and help others.
Asked by Oprah how she has changed over the past ten years, Gaga said she has become increasingly aware of her “responsibility to humanity and to those who follow me” as her career has grown and changed. Gaga sees herself as a “kindness punk”.
“I look back at everything I’ve done, and I look at what I’m doing now, and punks, you know, have a sort of reputation for being rebellious, right? So for me, I really view my career, and even what I’m doing now, as a rebellion against all the things in the world that I see to be unkind. Kindness heals the world. Kindness heals people. It’s what brings us together—it’s what keeps us healthy.”
These comments hark back to Gaga’s interview with Becks the other day, when she said, “I don’t think God put me on this earth to be loved by the world, I believe God put me here to help people love themselves more,” and it also related to something she said the other day on Instagram — “I didn’t do this for fame, I did it for impact.”
“I recognized very early on that my impact was to help liberate people through kindness,” Gaga tells Oprah. “I mean, I think it’s the most powerful thing in the world, particularly in the space of mental illness.”
Gaga spoke about how her mission with her new Haus cosmetics line is to create the same kind of inclusive space, for “all gender identities, all racial identities, everyone, every age. This is for everyone.”
In recent years, too, Gaga’s work has begun to eclipse her need to make statements in other ways, she says. After doing A Star Is Born she thought to herself, “You have a much greater mission on this earth than to freak the hell out of people. Your mission is to give people a form of love through your art that lifts them up.”
The interview covered plenty more ground too, from those Bradley Cooper dating rumours to Gaga’s PTSD and fibromyalgia, and the accompanying photos are sensational. Read it in full here. Also look out for Oprah’s mental health series she is making with Prince Harry for Apple.
