Lady Gaga Says She Suffered From Bulimia As A Teen

Lady Gaga attended the "It's Our Turn" conference at a Los Angeles high school yesterday, and the pop star chatted with host Maria Shriver and dozens of young women about everything from being bullied to her battle with bulimia.

Gaga told the audience, "I used to throw up all the time in high school. So I’m not that confident. I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night. I used to come home and say, ‘Dad, why do you always give us this food? I need to be thin.’ And he’d say, ‘Eat your spaghetti.’ It’s really hard, but you’ve got to talk to somebody about it." Gaga added, "It made my voice bad, so I had to stop. The acid on your vocal chords — it’s very bad."

The Grammy winner continued, "Weight is still a struggle. Every video I’m in, every magazine cover, they stretch you - they make you perfect. It’s not real life. I’m gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off. Because at the end of the day, it’s affecting kids your age. And it’s making girls sick."

As for being bullied, Gaga said, "I started having trouble with girls in middle school. I always knew that I wanted to do something very career oriented, and I always wanted to be a musician. That alone set me apart. I had such strong convictions and I was pretty delusional, in the same way that I am now … in wanting to change the world and end bullying in America and do whatever I can to promote peace around the world. It might sound kind of silly coming from someone in red lipstick with a bunch of jewels on my jacket. But that’s just the way I have always been. Being excluded is painful."