Oct 15, 2014

Lady Gaga Interviewed by 'The Times 2' UK


As her tour reaches Britain, the superstar reveals how marijuana and domineering men affected her career Lady Gaga is in Amsterdam, the latest pitstop on ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball, this perennially ambitious pop star’s latest grandiloquent take on the arena concert. A year ago, arriving in the party capital of Holland would have had greater significance for the 28-year-old who, in one of her typically forthright confessions, admitted there was a period when she was smoking 15 joints a day.

It was, she explained, a way of helping overcome her pain and distress after undergoing the hip surgery that confined her to a wheelchair and necessitated the cancellation of the remainder of her last megatour, 2012’s Born This Way Ball.

“I’m not in any way regretful [about] being honest about how much I was smoking during that time, because everybody goes through tough times,” she tells me from her hotel room, in a low, lightly-New York-accented voice. “And I also didn’t know that I was injured for a while. I just felt a lot of body pain, so this was my coping mechanism to get through it. 

“And now that I’m healed, I don’t smoke all the time any more. And I’m very proud to say that today I’m more sober than I’ve ever been. I had a little puff the other day - nothing - just to have a nice massage in the afternoon. I can have it now and not need it, which is nice, but to be honest I don’t need it at all.”

• INTERVIEW: (CLICK TO EXPAND)