Lady Gaga opens up about her early career struggles

Lady Gaga has just opened up about the challenges she faced in her career.

While chatting with Sunday Times, the songstress candidly discussed how fame has impacted her life.

"I’m just a much more stable, healthy human than I was for the last 20 years,” the 14-times Grammy award-winner said.

Lady Gaga released her first debut album The Fame at the age of 22 in 2008. "The music industry took over my life when I was younger," she said.

“It took me far away from myself and I had to endure a lot and it hardened me, for sure. It took me a while to find my feet."

While looking back at the challenges she faced in her early career, the Poker Face singer told the outlet, "I’ve been criticised for being the weird one, or different.

“Since the start of my career I’ve been asked, ‘What’s your style? How can we define you? ’And my earliest music was definable as me. But soon it’s viewed as a machine and a business.

"Well, my music has always been under my control. Since I was 17 I never allowed anyone to control that.

"But then you’re surrounded by systems figuring out how to monetise and market you, to turn you into an enterprise," she concluded.

The seventh studio album, MAYHEM, of Lady Gaga was released on March 7, 2025.