Lady Gaga Has A Lot To Say About Art, Creativity And Depression

2013 was a rough year for Lady GaGa – she started the year with a career hiatus due to an injury and ended it with her latest album, ARTPOP, underperforming in charts and in sales. Even so, Gaga is still hanging in there and she has a lot of plans for the future – all of them revolving in some way around her art, as she told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview for the latest issue.

“I went through a rough time last year,” Gaga said for Harper’s. “I felt very taken advantage of by people I trusted. I asked my mother, "I work so hard. I never stop. I never say no. Why doesn't this person love me, Mom? Why was this person willing to hurt me to help themselves? Why wasn't I enough? Why is money more important than me? She reminded me to forgive others for not seeing God where I see it. I see God in my fans.”

Gaga says that the critics don’t phase her and that the love-it-or-hate-it response is exactly what she seeks to evoke with her music and fashion. When asked how she responds to the critics, Gaga responded: “I've never had that type of relationship with art, that sort of hypercritical thing that's going around. I often think people don't know what to think of me, and in fact this is precisely the objective of many of my creations. Even back in the days with Lady Starlight, my original partner, we aimed to bemuse. This feeling of bemusement—it's neither good nor bad. It just is.”

The controversial performer also addressed her slump from last year, explaining why it happened and how she got out of it in the end. Gaga admits to having gone through a bout of depression at the end of last year. And she lived through it, the singer says, by rediscovering her talents.