Lady Gaga has revealed the dark reality behind her Oscar-winning turn in A Star Is Born, admitting she was medicated throughout filming and spiraled into a ‘psychotic break’ soon after.
The 2018 blockbuster — co-starring Bradley Cooper — catapulted Gaga into movie superstardom, earning rave reviews, eight Oscar nominations, and a Best Original Song win for her and Cooper’s smash hit Shallow.
But behind the scenes, Gaga says she was falling apart.
A week after nabbing seven Grammy nominations for her new album Mayhem, the singer opened up to Rolling Stone for its December issue, admitting her ‘psyche was unraveling’ while shooting the film.
‘I did A Star Is Born on lithium,’ she frankly admitted.
The drug, commonly prescribed for bipolar disorder, is ‘used to treat mania that is part of manic-depressive illness’ and helps stabilize severe mood swings, ranging from “an excited or manic state” to depression or sadness,’ according to the Mayo Clinic.
Lady Gaga revealed the dark reality behind her Oscar-winning turn in A Star Is Born, admitting she was medicated throughout filming and spiraled into a ‘psychotic break’ soon after in her new Rolling Stone cover story
The singer admitted her ‘psyche was unraveling’ while shooting the film A Star Is Born with Bradley Cooper
Daily Mail has not received a response to its request for comment from reps for Cooper.
Soon after the cameras stopped rolling — and while she was on her Joanne tour — Gaga suffered what she described as a ‘psychotic break.’
‘There was one day that my sister said to me, “I don’t see my sister anymore,”‘ she recalled.
‘And I canceled the tour. There was one day I went to the hospital for psychiatric care. I needed to take a break. I couldn’t do anything … I completely crashed.
‘It was really scary. There was a time where I didn’t think I could get better.… I feel really lucky to be alive. I know that might sound dramatic, but we know how this can go.’
Now, Gaga says she’s finally found peace — and love.
The singer credits much of her recovery to her fiancé, Harvard-educated entrepreneur Michael Polansky, who was first linked to her around New Year’s Eve 2019, went Instagram official in early 2020, and popped the question in April 2024.
‘Being in love with someone that cares about the real me made a very big difference,’ she told Rolling Stone.
But that self-discovery took work.
‘I did A Star Is Born on lithium,’ she frankly admitted
Soon after the cameras stopped rolling — and while she was on her Joanne tour — Gaga suffered what she described as a ‘psychotic break’; (pictured 2018)
‘How do you learn how to be yourself with someone when you don’t know how to be yourself with anyone?’ she reflected.
After years of struggle, Gaga now considers herself ‘a healthy, whole person.’
And in March, she released Mayhem — hailed as one of the greatest albums of her career.
‘It was months and months and months of rediscovering everything that I’d lost,” she explained.
‘And I honestly think that’s why it’s called Mayhem. Because what it took to get it back was crazy.’
Now, it appears the couple are focusing on building a family.
‘Being a mom is the thing I want most,’ she told Rolling Stone. ‘And he’s going to be a beautiful father. We’re really excited about that.’
Polansky chimed in and teased details about their wedding.
‘We’re talking about it all the time,’ he said. ‘We have these breaks and they’re tempting. It’s like, “OK, can we get married that weekend?”
‘It was really scary. There was a time where I didn’t think I could get better.… I feel really lucky to be alive. I know that might sound dramatic, but we know how this can go,’ Gaga said; (pictured 2019)
‘We don’t want a really big wedding, but we want to enjoy it. In a lot of ways, we already feel married, so it’s not like it’s gonna change much.’
Gaga previously opened up about her mental health struggles while promoting Mayhem in March.
‘[Five years ago] I had a psychosis,’ she told The New York Times podcast The Interview about the dark time in her life.
‘I was not deeply in touch with reality for a while,’ the Poker Face artist admitted. ‘It took me out of life in a big way, and after a lot of years of hard work I got myself back.’
The hitmaker said the various characters she created for her persona as Lady Gaga led to her not being completely attached to reality.
‘I had to figure out a way to integrate myself fully with my stage persona and kind of inhabit Lady Gaga’s boss energy in my everyday life but in an empowered way, and make sense of maybe two things that don’t make a ton of sense,’ the Joker: Folie à Deux actress said of the process.
‘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. So I had to learn how to hold those two things and have them not be at war with each other,’ she explained.
‘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.’
After years of struggle, Gaga now considers herself ‘a healthy, whole person’
Lady Gaga, who revealed in 2021 she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after being sexually abused by a music producer when she was only 19, also spoke about the lack of safety for young artists — especially young women — in the music business.
‘There are no laws around who can be a producer, and they’re not vetted by anyone,’ she said.
‘So when you’re 17 years old and you are invited into a studio, you have no protection. You don’t know where you’re going. You may not even have an adult in the room with you other than the person that you’re working with.
‘It’s not the safest industry.’
