In a recent interview with CBS News, Lady Gaga opened up about her ongoing struggle with mental health, specifically within the years leading up to her sixth consecutive chart-topping album, Chromatica.

“I’m not amazing, I’m over,” Gaga told CBS‘ Lee Cowan, explaining that the plight of superstardom had driven her to the brink of her life. When asked if she had ever contemplated suicide, Gaga unabashedly told Cowan, “Oh yeah, every day.” She added, “I hated being famous. I hated being a star. I felt exhausted and used up.”

Although she admitted to feeling overwhelmingly objectified by the public eye, Gaga said that she felt the most used by her alter ego—the very impetus for her stardom. She looked back on times where she couldn’t attend a family outing without drawing attention to herself, self-deprecatingly and rhetorically asking this part of herself, “Everything is about you. Why do you have to make everything about you?”

Regardless of the upbeat restoration of her popstar roots in her newest album, the lyrics in each song speak directly to her experience and the dark place that she was in before its release. “There’s not one song on that record that’s not true. Not one,” Gaga said. Even her latest No. 1 hit, “Rain on Me” with Ariana Grande, reveals the grim underbelly of her experience at the time.

Chromatica is not only her sixth No. 1 album in a row, but also a form of deep catharsis. Even at her lowest emotional point, Lady Gaga acknowledged that no matter how down she gets, quitting the industry just is not an option:

“I don’t know why, but I have to [sing]…turns out, even if I don’t wanna be alive, I still know how to write a song.”

In her process of moving beyond the past two disheartening years, Gaga said she has finally been able to let go of her disdain for her pop-sensation alter ego. “I have found a way to love myself again,” she concluded.

Watch the full interview below.

Via: CBS

Featured image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Tags: Ariana Grande, Chromatica, fame, Lady Gaga, mental health

Categories: Videos