Lady Gaga Used to Have to Hide in Her House: "It Really Drove Me Crazy"

"I hid a lot...to preserve my image as a superstar to my fans. I don't mean I am a superstar, I mean that they only ever see me at my best. And it really drove me crazy," she said

Despite her constant media attention, Lady Gaga led a very sheltered life at one point—literally.

Yes, the public sees Mother Monster (and all of her bizarre outfits) out and about often now, but that wasn't always the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

During an interview with The Guardian before her performance at the iTunes Festival, Gaga revealed that when she first became a star in 2008, she used to hide out in her house, and it wasn't for reasons you might expect.

No, it wasn't because of the paparazzi or the possible fear that an instant rise to fame can bring that kept her indoors—it was to stay true to her fans.

"I hid in my house," she explains, "I hid a lot...to preserve my image as a superstar to my fans. I don't mean I am a superstar, I mean that they only ever see me at my best. And it really drove me crazy. So I've really had to make more of an effort to go out more. I mean, can you imagine what it's like not to feel real wind? Honestly, I hadn't felt real wind for years!"

So the pop star sacrificed going outdoors because she only wanted fans to see her as Gaga, not as Stefani Germanotta. And she's not exaggerating when she says she never went outside.

"I would be indoors all day and then I'd get in a car in a garage and then drive to another garage and get out and rehearse and then do it again, from country to country, and never walk outside. I remember some of the longest walks I had were from the car to the aeroplane on the tarmac," the celeb said.

Fast forward to present-day, and Lady Gaga has become much more comfortable going out into the public eye, albeit usually still in eyebrow-raising attire; however she does give fans glimpses of herself stripped of her stage persona. This has also transferred into her music.

"I had really tried to hide a lot of my pain from my past in the last few years," she says, and began talking about her upcoming album.

"For ARTPOP, I, in the most metaphorical explanation, stood in front of a mirror and I took off the wig and I took off the makeup and I unzipped the outfit and I put a black cap on my head and I covered my body in a black catsuit and I looked in the mirror and I said: 'OK, now you need to show them you can be brilliant without that.' And that's what ARTPOP is all about. Because I knew that if I wanted to grow, if I really wanted to innovate from the inside, I had to do something that was almost impossible for me."