Does a video show Lady Gaga describing the trauma she experienced at one of Sean "Diddy" Combs' "freak off" parties? No, that's not true: The video clip is from a 2021 interview with Stefani Germanotta, the singer's real name, in a documentary series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry. She is talking about the sexual abuse she experienced from an unnamed producer when she was 19, not as an attendee at one of Combs' parties.
The video appeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on October 3, 2024, under the caption, "Lady gaga speaks out about p diddys 'freak offs.'" It shows her tearing up during an interview when she recounts a story about an unidentified person who told her:
...'Take your clothes off.' And I said, 'No.' And I left, and they told me they were gonna burn all my music. And they didn't stop, they didn't stop asking me, and then, I just froze and I just, I don't even remember. And I will not say his name. I understand this 'Me Too' movement, I understand that some people feel really comfortable with this, and I do not. I do not ever want to face that person again.
This is how the post looked on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Nov 26 15:39:33 2024 UTC)
The caption refers to Combs as "P Diddy," one of the various stage names the rapper used, known as just "Diddy" at the time of writing (archived here). In the indictment released following Combs' September 2024 arrest on charges including sex trafficking (archived here), federal authorities said Combs caused women to participate in events called "freak offs," which were "elaborate sex performances that COMBS arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded."
Germanotta is not talking about her experiences at a "freak off" in the Instagram post. The clip was taken from "The Me You Can't See," a documentary series produced by Winfrey and Prince Harry that premiered on Apple+ in 2021 (archived here).
The series is only viewable on Apple+ with a subscription, but the first part of her statement in the post on Instagram also appears in a preview of the show available on Australian news outlet news.com.au's YouTube channel. At the outset, Gaga says:
A producer said to me, 'Take your clothes off.' And I said, 'No.'
The video on Instagram cuts out the part where she says "a producer" had sexually traumatized her.
In their articles about Germanotta's appearance in "The Me You Can't See," news outlets such as CNN (archived here) and Reuters (archived here) also made it clear the singer was talking about a producer.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims about Lady Gaga can be found here. Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to Sean Combs can be found here.
