When you were interested in playing with artifice and trying on different personas, was that ever psychologically destabilizing? Absolutely. At a certain point, I just completely lost touch with reality. I was falling so deeply into the fantasy of my artwork and my stage persona that I lost touch. I wouldn’t say that falling deeper into a life of being a tortured character was good for anything.

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It worked, though. I suppose, in a way. I think there are some people that really liked that side of me, but I didn’t like that side of me, and I was really unhappy, and I feel like I have myself in order now. I went back downtown to a bar that I used to go to all the time last week. I’d go in the middle of the day, and I would order a whiskey and a beer. That’s where my friends were. That’s where my artist community was. I used to visit, and I used to feel really sad, like I was far away from the person that I was when I was living down there. But this last time that I went, I felt like the old me.

Do you have any skepticism internally about whether the person you are now is just another persona? No, but I know why you’re asking me that.

“I am authentic now” is a thing that people do. I’m sure that does happen. Let’s put it this way: I was authentic before. That was authentically me. I just was authentically splitting off into different personalities all the time. Now, who I would be at dinner with you is who I would be in this interview. I guess authenticity is subjective. I just feel like I more easily can hold it all.

Earlier you alluded to a period five or so years ago when your mental health was not in a great place. Are you able to tell me more about what was going on then? Yeah, I mean, I had psychosis. I was not deeply in touch with reality for a while. It took me out of life in a big way, and after a lot of years of hard work I got myself back. It was a hard time, and it was actually really special when I met my partner because when I met Michael, I was in a much better place, but I remember him saying to me, pretty early on, “I know you could be a lot happier than you are.” It was really hard for me to hear him say that because I didn’t want him to think that of me. I wanted him to think I was like this happy, totally together person. But it’s something that I have found increasingly harder to talk about. I hate feeling defined by it. It felt like something I felt ashamed of. But I don’t think that we should feel ashamed if we go through times like that. I mostly just wish to say, it can get better. It did for me, and I’m grateful for that.

How did you turn it around? It goes back to what you were saying about playing characters earlier in my career. I had to figure out a way to integrate myself fully with my stage persona and kind of inhabit Lady Gaga’s boss energy in my everyday life but in an empowered way, and make sense of maybe two things that don’t make a ton of sense. I’d like to think that I’m a kind person, but there’s a ferociousness and a hardness and an intensity that I have onstage as a performer. So I had to learn how to hold those two things and have them not be at war with each other. I’ve learned to not pour gasoline on it. I used to like more chaos, just living life on the edge constantly. I’m now proud to be much more boring.

Before the interview started, we were making small talk, and I mentioned my kids. You, in a wistful way, said, “I would love to have kids one day.” Do you have any apprehension about having kids and still being able to be Lady Gaga? No, I don’t. I’m excited to be a mom. I used to have a lot of apprehension about it. The thing that’s the most important to me is to not force my children to live a life that they are not choosing. So the more that we can give them space to discover who they are on their own, that’s the thing that I believe in the most. If our children only understand Mommy’s job, that’s a very narrow view of life. There’s so much in the world, and I want them to be able to choose for themselves who they want to be. I’m also kind of at war with myself sometimes as I get ready to, hopefully, become a mom soon. Like, today is wonderful, but the whole day has revolved around me. There’s an incredible amount of narcissism in this. How do I live a life where I’m passionate about my art while also making more space for other things?

I suspect the only answer is living it. Yeah, through living it. Like, “Mayhem” coming out, it’s kind of like my birthday. But maybe there’s a time for it to be someone else’s holiday.

David Marchese • Lady Gaga’s Latest Experiment? Happiness.