For Lady Gaga, the power of kindness has always been the pivotal plank of the superstar performer’s public platform. She took her cause to the stage of every acceptance speech for her honors in “A Star Is Born” in 2018 and never missed an opportunity to lavish love on the costars and crew in the production. Every devoted “Little Monster” among her legions of fans knows how Lady Gaga sacrifices her spirit, mind, and physical body to offer an unforgettable performance. “CBS Sunday Morning” showcased the most recent proof of her artistic passion at the 2020 VMA Awards last month in a September 20 profile, but once again, the multitalented, multifaceted talent kept the focus on kindness.

This talk was not the typical type featured in entertainment TV Shows.

With every donning of one of her facial masks from her diverse menagerie that evening, Lady Gaga was doing more good for public health than the dozens of CDC representatives testifying before Congress. The singer-songwriter explained to correspondent, Lee Cowan, that her heart and the symbolism all come down to kindness. Kindness is something the singer-songwriter learned to apply to herself through the making of the music for her album “Chromatica,” released in May.

Kindness comes down to life-and-death for Lady Gaga

“These are kind acts,” Lady Gaga defends of every mask-wearing person. Much more emphatically, she implores: “WEAR A MASK!” of the viewing public seeing the interview.

The gifted and giving artist did open her home for the interview, and her struggles with fibromyalgia do put her in an already immune-compromised group. It's impossible to understand how the current administration has politicized the simple act of stopping transmission that the entire CBS production crew adopted for the segment, much to the delight of the subject.

Lady Gaga’s remarkably candid and instantly open manner of speaking her truth is as inviting as the Italian cooking that she and Bradley Cooper shared at her home at the start of their co-starring film preparation. She notes in a September 20 Variety interview with Lin Manuel Miranda via ShowbizCheatSheet that it was the people brought in by Cooper to support and surround the stars that provided a sense of security and safety to build their on-screen rapport.

Whether she is chatting with Stephen Colbert or pouring her heart out to Oprah, Lady Gaga gives her unvarnished self.

“There’s not one song that's untrue,” assures the singer-songwriter regarding “Chromatica.” The album was recorded at home and the attentive and loving presence of those who “lifted me up” brought Lady Gaga through a dark passage of hatred for the persona she created and back into love for Stefani again. People make the difference.

The pain and beautiful promise of the piano, ever in reach for Lady Gaga

In a poignant pause, the woman who would become Lady Gaga reaches behind her and delicately strikes the piano keys.

“This piano…. I've written so many songs on this piano… It's so special, I love this piano.”

Those were not the feelings that the forgotten Stefani Germanotta felt as she came to the piano for the start of her album.

Fans who were so excited by the electronica beats of “Stupid Love” soon found out that while the sound of “Chromatica” hearkens to the early years of Lady Gaga's omnipresent hits, the message of the songs is a stark and brutal departure.

“You ruined my life!” the songwriter recalls railing at her instrument. “You made me Lady Gaga.” The accusation was all the more pointed amidst her sense that she was “exhausted” and completely “used up” after years of her performance art inhabiting her life. “I gave up on myself,” she admits. “Lady Gaga was my enemy.”

She recounts that while she was much more herself as Stefani on her 2016 effort, the moving “Joanne,” named after her paternal aunt, who also is her namesake, she was also trying “to fix my dad” from the pain of trauma from his sister’s loss that also became her own.

In retrospect, she now realizes “I could never fix that.”

Mental illness is often deceptive because it is “invisible,” as the artist relates, but Lady Gaga gave her. Following the deepest look ever into the “global pain” that goes into her life as a performer, both mentally and physically, in “Five Foot Two.” She concedes that there have been episodes where she resorted to cutting, and she felt like her only purpose during her recent depression was to “be there for my family.” She reveals that she thought about suicide “every day.” There were people staying in her home to keep watch and ensure her safety over the past two years. Genuine reminders from good friends also became good medicine.

Old and new friends bring truth and light to Lady Gaga

Few artists ever muster the courage to confront life situations like Lady Gaga, much less to put truth on the screen as she does in her just-released video for “911.” She has learned that the greatest trigger to her devastating panic is “objectification,” such as when a stranger swoops in to invade rare moments of a normal life as though she is “not a person.” Clicking cameras and pressing in can create “full-body pain” that lasts for days or weeks. The “pop a 911” signature line of the song that follows “My biggest enemy is me” refers to the medication she must take after a situation sparks an attack.

Fortunately, though, Lady Gaga has also learned to listen to those close to her who remind her “you're amazing” and stand ready with a lifeline she feels she's drowning.

Along with Bradley Cooper, Sir Elton John often calls with a caring word and knows to send a text if she doesn't answer the phone. Her collaboration with Ariana Grande became a gift in more ways than one. “You know what it is to have a female friend in this business?” the superstar rhetorically inquires. “Having a female friend is like watching a pig fly!” “Rain on Me” became a shower a platonic blessing for the two forces in female entertainment.

Tenderly reaching to her beloved piano again, Lady Gaga shrugs “Even if I don't want to be alive. I still know how to write a song,” she reflects. That gift compels her to sing to others in pain or isolation, and the songs draw many hearts in shadows into the light, as they understand they are not alone.

“I have to…” she answers to why she must continue to make music. She even swears on “my future unborn children.”

Lady Gaga loves herself today and Stefani Germanotta can live in peace within her. The colorful star releases a book of stories on kindness from her fans, “Channel Kindness,” this week. Most of all, she realizes that the piano that “I love so much, that lets me speak, that lets me make poetry,” is one of the kindest gifts to her life forever, just as her songs are for countless listeners.
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