Lady Gaga claims she was raped as a teenager by man 20 years her senior

Pop star claims she was just 19 when she allegedly assaulted

Lady Gaga was sexually assaulted as a teenager by a man she says was 20 years older than her.

The pop star made the claim during a discussion about a controversial performance of her song Swine when US radio host Howard Stern said the lyrics suggested she had been sexually assaulted by a record producer.

Defending the moment an artist vomited paint on her, Lady Gaga told Stern her song was about "rape and demoralisation". Stern then suggested the singer had been abused, asking her: "Were you raped by a record producer? Was that what happened to you? […] I feel like you were raped by someone."

The singer replied: "I went through some horrific things that I’m able to laugh [at] now, because I've gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy and emotional therapy to heal over the years. My music has been wonderful for me.

"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?' I was very naive."

Gaga said she was so traumatised by the alleged incident that she did not come to terms with the attack until four or five years later. "I was like, just keep going. […] I wasn't even willing to admit that anything had even happened."

She described seeing her abuser in a store and being paralysed by fear. "I didn’t tell anybody", she told Stern. "I didn’t even tell myself for the longest time."

Despite the trauma, Gaga insisted she did not want to be defined the alleged incident, adding: "I'll be damned if somebody is gonna say that every creatively intelligent thing I ever did is boiled down to one d******* that did that to me."