Lady GaGa and Ariana Grande have released their collaboration 'Rain On Me'.

The new track is Gaga's official second single from her upcoming album 'Chromatica', following on from her first song 'Stupid Love' and the star says it is ''a metaphor for tears''.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 radio show, she explained: ''['Rain ON Me'] is also a metaphor for tears and for the amount of alcohol I was taking to numb myself. I'd rather be dry but at least I'm alive, rain on me.''

And Gaga, 34, said she and Ariana, 26 - who has battled with a number of tragedies in her life in the past few years, including the bombing at her 2017 Manchester Arena gig and the death of her ex Mac Miller - bonded while working on the song.

Gaga explained: ''That woman has been through some really tough, really hard life testing stuff, undoubtedly. And her ability to move on...'

''To be with her and hold her and be like, 'Anything that you feel chains you, any pop cultural construct that you feel you have to live up to, I'd like you to please forget about it and be yourself.'''

However, Gaga admitted it took her some time to open up to friendship with Ariana, because of her own mental health struggles.

She said: ''When she came into the studio, I was still crying and she was not. And she was like, 'You're going to be OK. Call me; here's my number'.

''And she was so persistent. She would try over and over again to be friends with me. And I was too ashamed to hang out with her because I didn't want to project all of this negativity onto something that was healing and so beautiful. And eventually she called me on my sh*t. She was, 'You're hiding'. And I was ... and then this friendship blossomed.''