Lady Gaga, the singer and actor, revealed that a music producer sexually assaulted when she was 19.
Recounting the incident on Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey’s documentary series The Me You Can’t See, the singer said that she suffered from a breakdown and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she visited a hospital for chronic pain. According to the Indian Express, she did not want to reveal his identity as she did not want to face him ever again.
The Me You Can’t See premiered on May 21 on Apple TV+. Prince Harry and Winfrey are the series’ co-creators and executive producers.
Apart from Lady Gaga, actor Glenn Close, boxer Virginia Fuchs and basketball player DeMar DeRozan have featured in the series. Refugees from Syria have also featured in the documentary series to speak about their experiences with mental health and trauma.
According to a report by Deadline, the five-part series aims to dispel the stigma around mental health.
“Now more than ever, there is an immediate need to replace the shame surrounding mental health with wisdom, compassion, and honesty. Our series aims to spark that global conversation,” Winfrey said.
Prince Harry also spoke about his own trauma in the series. Ahead of the series’ launch, he told Reuters: “It wouldn’t have been fair of us to ask people to put themselves out there, to be vulnerable, to share their story, if we weren’t willing to do the same.”
According to The Guardian, he opened up about his mother Princess Diana’s death and using drugs and alcohol as a means to cope with anxiety.
He also told Winfrey about his wife Meghan Markle’s struggles with coping with the responsibilities of being a working member of the British Royal family. “We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling,” he said.
The Duchess of Sussex, who was then pregnant with their first child, had told him that she was battling suicidal thoughts right before they attended a charity event in London. He said, “The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum, and now to be put in the position of losing another woman in my life with a baby inside of her, our baby.”
Recommended
In the final episode, Close talked about being a part of a cult during her childhood. A report by New Zealand Herald stated that she was seven-years-old when her father became so involved with a religious group that they moved to Switerzland for 15 years. “Everybody spouted the same things and there was a lot of rules, a lot of control. It was really awful,” she said.
The Me You Can’t See also saw Winfrey share her childhood experiences. She said she was sexually assaulted by her cousin when she was nine and was made to sleep on an outside porch by her mother.
The documentary series is one of the first ventures of Prince Harry since he stepped down from his royal duties in 2020. He has also signed production deals with Netflix and will produce and host shows on Spotify with Markle.
The Me You Can’t See is directed by Dawn Porter and is currently streaming on Apple TV+.