Lady Gaga 'cherishes' her loneliness

Lady Gaga has learned to "cherish" her loneliness after battling depression and a serious drug addiction during her youth, when cocaine became her only friend.

The Poker Face hitmaker has been open about her pre-fame substance abuse issues, but she delved into more detail during a candid TV chat on The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet, and admitted that she's come to embrace her own company.

Speaking on the show, which aired on Thursday (03May12), she said, "I have begun to cherish my loneliness. I have since I was around 20 years old... I was very depressed when I was 19 because I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school...

"I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there and it was lonely and it was still. It was just my piano and myself. And I had a television that I would leave on all the time to feel like there was someone hanging out with me, and especially during the period when I was doing cocaine, it was like the drug was my friend. I never did it with other people. It's such a terrible way to fill that void, because it just adds to that void, because it's not real."

Gaga managed to pull herself out of her depression and drug hell after realising cocaine was taking her further and further away from her dreams of making it as a pop star: "I sort of f**king woke up one day and was like, 'You're an a**hole. You're not an artist. If you were a real f**king artist, you'd be focused on your music. You wouldn't be spending your money on the white devil.'

"There's this perception and romanticism around the drug, that it's sexy or that it's so artistic or that your troubled and you're going to make great music, when really, you're just a f**king loser. I just stopped and focused 150 per cent of my energy on my happiness."