Lady Gaga says Elton John is "instrumental" to her life
Lady Gaga has spoken about her friendship with Elton John in a new interview.
The singer, who will release new album ‘Chromatica’, her first since 2016’s ‘Joanne’, later this month, spoke about how making the new record helped her heal from past trauma. She added that John has supported her “to really take care of myself”.
John, who appears on the ‘Chromatica’ song ‘SINE From Above’, has been her “mentor” and played a significant role in her road to recovery.
“He’s been my mentor for a long time,” Gaga told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I mean, he’s always challenged me to keep my head above water and it’s something that I always appreciate is that he knows when I’m down. He just does. And he knows because I hide, because I never want anyone to see me when I’m like that,” she said.
“Elton’s always really challenged me to take care of my artistry and to really take care of myself. And I really, really honour that about him. He is so, so uniquely special.”
She continued: “And I cannot tell you how instrumental in my life he’s been to showing me that you can go all the way in life and… be authentic and be you and do good things in the world and take care of yourself and be there.”
Elsewhere in the video interview broadcast on Thursday (May 21) Gaga said that her newfound philosophy of self-acceptance helped her forgive her past destructive behaviour, including self-harm.
“I forgive myself for all the ways I’ve punished myself in private. I’ve been open about the fact that I used to cut. And I’ve been open about the fact that I have had masochistic tendencies that are not healthy,” Gaga said. “They’re ways of expressing shame. They’re ways of expressing feeling not good enough, but actually they’re not effective. They just make you feel worse.
“I think that the beginning of the album really symbolises, for me, what I would call the beginning of my journey to healing, and what I would hope would be an inspiration for people that are in need of healing through happiness, through dance,” Gaga added.
“And that’s in what I would call radical acceptance… For example, I know that I have mental issues; I know that they can be sometimes rendering me nonfunctional as a human. But I radically accept that this is real.”
Earlier this week Gaga released ‘Rain on Me’, her collaboration with Ariana Grande. Watch the pair hold a futuristic rave for the song’s accompanying video here.
