Lady Gaga: I drew from experience of sexual assault for House of Gucci role
Lady Gaga has said she drew from her experience of being sexually assaulted as a teenager while filming House of Gucci.
The 35-year-old singer and actress previously revealed how, aged 19, she was raped by a music producer and subsequently developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Speaking to BBC News, she detailed how that, and other traumatic experiences, fed into her performance as Patrizia Reggiani – a socialite who had her fashion dynasty heir husband Maurizio Gucci murdered in a case that gripped Italy.
She said: “I would say, what was the most relevant about my personal experiences was the trauma that I’ve been through in my life. The various major events that harmed my insides.
“The poison of experiencing a man’s world all the time, as a woman.
“Being in the music industry, I would say less of the hustle as part of her character, but more of being assaulted when I was 19 by a music producer.
“Feeling endlessly controlled by men as I continued my career and tried to find my own voice and be in my own empowerment, not power, but empowerment as a woman.
“I took from every trigger point that I could find, and I allowed myself to experience, I could cry talking about it, to experience survival mode all the time.”
Lady Gaga, who is of Italian descent and whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, said her own experience of PTSD had informed her performance in Sir Ridley Scott’s crime drama.
She previously told how she spent nine months speaking with an Italian accent to get into character.
“I’ve been very open about having post traumatic stress disorder, and I have complex PTSD,” she said.
“So that’s not a single incident PTSD. It’s multiple incidents, I used all of them at different times in different moments in the script.
“I don’t necessarily think this is the best way to act. I don’t know that I encourage every actor to do it this way.
“But it’s what I was compelled to do for the role because I thought to myself, well, there’s simply no other answer for why she would have her husband murdered.”
Reggiani, a socialite and high fashion personality, was convicted of orchestrating the 1995 assassination of Maurizio, the grandson of Gucci’s founder.
In an attempt to get the verdict overturned, her two daughters argued a brain tumour had affected her behaviour.
She was eventually freed in 2016.
House Of Gucci will arrive in UK cinemas on November 26.
