Celebrity

Lady Gaga Reveals She Was ‘On Lithium’ While Making ‘A Star Is Born’: ‘Lucky to Be Alive’

Lady Gaga is “lucky to be alive” after suffering a mental health break shortly after filming A Star Is Born.

In a cover story interview with Rolling Stone on Thursday, the Grammy-winning singer, 39, revealed that she filmed the 2017 musical drama, which also starred Bradley Cooper, “on lithium” while on the brink of a psychotic break.

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The Mayhem songstress then set off on the Joanne World Tour in August 2017, before announcing in February 2018 that she would be canceling the rest of the tour in order to focus on her well-being.

Lady Gaga performs onstage during the Lady Gaga “Joanne” World Tour at Bell Centre on November 3, 2017 in Montreal, Canada. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for Live Nation)

Gaga now reveals that she had suffered a mental health crisis that required her to go to the hospital for psychiatric care.

โ€œThere was one day that my sister said to me, โ€˜I donโ€™t see my sister anymore,’” she told Rolling Stone. โ€œAnd I canceled the tour. There was one day I went to the hospital for psychiatric care. I needed to take a break. I couldnโ€™t do anythingโ€ฆ I completely crashed. It was really scary.”

She continued, “There was a time where I didnโ€™t think I could get better.”

Now, the Joker: Folie ร  Deux star says she feels “really lucky to be alive,” adding, “I know that might sound dramatic, but we know how this can go.”

Gaga also credited her fiancรฉ, Michael Polansky, with helping her become a “healthy, whole person,” explaining, โ€œBeing in love with someone that cares about the real me made a very big difference. How do you learn how to be yourself with someone when you donโ€™t know how to be yourself with anyone?โ€

Lady Gaga performs on stage at The O2 Arena on September 29, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation)

The “Poker Face” singer has been open about her mental and physical health struggles over the years, using her acceptance speech at the SAG-AFTRA Patron of the Artists Award fundraiser in 2018 to speak about her “debilitating mental spirals.”

โ€œThere were also symptoms, symptoms of dissociation and PTSD, and I did not have a team that included mental health support,โ€ she explained at the time of her nonstop schedule. โ€œThis later morphed into physical chronic pain, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, acute trauma responses, and debilitating mental spirals that have included the suicidal ideation and masochistic behavior. Okay. Iโ€™m done with my list, but that list changed my life. And it changed my life not in a good way.โ€

She added that it was “too late” by the time she sought out help. “I needed help earlier. I needed mental health care,” Gaga continued. “I needed someone to see not through me or see the star that Iโ€™d become but rather see the darkness inside that I was struggling with.”