Lady Gaga says she takes “a lot of medicine to stay on board”

Pop star Lady Gaga opened up about taking medication and dealing with her mental health issues in a conversation with Oprah Winfrey on the first day of Winfrey’s 2020 wellness tour Saturday in Florida.

“I will put my shame in a box all the way over there and make it very small and say to myself, ‘I have mental health issues, I take a lot of medicine to stay on board and I’m a survivor and I’m living and I’m thriving and I’m strong and I’m going to take all my life experiences and I’m going to share them with the world and make it a better place,'” she said on stage at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida.

Fifteen thousand people were in the packed theater Saturday morning for the first stop on Winfrey’s “2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus” tour, CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reports. In their conversation, Gaga told Winfrey she is medicated every day.

“I take no narcotics at all. No pain medication,” she said. “I’m on antidepressants.”

Gaga listed a few of the medications she takes, but clarified she was not recommending specific medications for anyone. “It’s not the same for everyone,” she said.

Winfrey partnered with WW, the company formerly known as Weight Watchers, for the wellness tour. She is the largest individual shareholder of the company, but, long before she had an ownership stake, Winfrey said the points system that WW uses helped her realize that living well isn’t about staying home and starving yourself.

So at each tour stop, Winfrey plans to highlight local restaurants that offer WW meals. In Miami, she stopped by Lil Greenhouse Grill, where the WW menu item is shrimp and collard greens.

“Sometimes women of color who are in a certain financial situation don’t feel like they have access to these type of programs,” the restaurant owner Nicole Gates said, explaining the difference it makes for women to have the WW option at restaurants.

Asked what her intention is for everyone who comes to a tour stop, Winfrey said, “I hope people leave with a rising in them because I know that you can’t come to a motivational speech or day and instantly change your life, but I want people to feel the rising inside them that yearns for the more and then have clarity about what that more is.”

Winfrey’s entire interview with Gaga will air on her Facebook page and on the WW Facebook page on Wednesday.