Lady Gaga Had Psychosis, Lost Touch With Reality 5 Years Ago

Lady Gaga has long black hair and wears a black one-shoulder dress — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Lady Gaga has entered her Mayhem era, and she's reflecting on her life so far.

In a candid interview, Lady Gaga discussed everything from her career to her love life and her mental health. Speaking to The New York Times, Gaga shared, "I had psychosis. I was not deeply in touch with reality for a while. It took me out of life in a big way, and after a lot of years of hard work I got myself back."

The "Die With a Smile" singer continued, "It was a hard time, and it was actually really special when I met my partner because when I met Michael [Polansky], I was in a much better place, but I remember him saying to me, pretty early on, 'I know you could be a lot happier than you are.'"

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Gaga shared that it was "really hard" to hear fiancé Michael Polansky express that the singer might be unhappy. "I wanted him to think I was like this happy, totally together person," she explained. "But it's something that I have found increasingly harder to talk about."

Lady Gaga wears a strapless white and gold dress and has long blonde hair — "But it's something that I have found increasingly harder to talk about."

The A Star Is Born actress said of her diagnosis, "I hate feeling defined by it. It felt like something I felt ashamed of. But I don't think that we should feel ashamed if we go through times like that. I mostly just wish to say, it can get better. It did for me, and I'm grateful for that."

The singer explained that, in order to feel better, she "had to figure out a way to integrate [herself] fully with [her] stage persona," which included inhabiting "Lady Gaga's boss energy." According to Gaga, the dualities of being a pop icon and a normal person became difficult to hold at once, which is why she had to work at loving both.

met gala - lady gaga — "I used to like more chaos, just living life on the edge constantly."

"I'd like to think that I'm a kind person, but there's a ferociousness and a hardness and an intensity that I have onstage as a performer," Gaga told the outlet. "So I had to learn how to hold those two things and have them not be at war with each other." She continued, "I've learned to not pour gasoline on it. I used to like more chaos, just living life on the edge constantly. I'm now proud to be much more boring."

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Amy Mackelden is the weekend editor at Marie Claire, where she covers celebrity and royal family news. She was the weekend editor at Harper’s BAZAAR for three years, where she covered breaking celebrity and entertainment news, royal stories, fashion, beauty, and politics. Prior to that, she spent a year as the joint weekend editor for Marie Claire, ELLE, and Harper's BAZAAR, and two years as an entertainment writer at Bustle. Her additional bylines include Cosmopolitan, People, The Independent, HelloGiggles, Biography, Shondaland, Best Products, New Statesman, Heat, and The Guardian. Her work has been syndicated by publications including Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Delish, Oprah Daily, Country Living, and Women's Health. Her celebrity interviews include Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Chastain, the cast of Selling Sunset, Emma Thompson, Jessica Alba, and Penn Badgley. In 2015, she delivered an academic paper at Kimposium, the world's first Kardashian conference.