Lady Gaga gets emotional in video on first night of Chromatica Ball: 'I was really battling from my life'

For the first time since 2018, Lady Gaga is ready to hit the road on tour.

As the doors opened at Merkur Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany for the first night of her 2022 tour, the Chromatica Ball, Lady Gaga posted a video from backstage on her Instagram candidly discussing her feelings and nervousness of returning to the stage and the meaning behind the show.

“I want to allow you all to interpret this show in the way that you want to, but I will say that it really documents the many different stages and sides of grief and the manic energy of grief that I feel that I’ve experienced in my life,” she said. “I really want to thank you for sticking it out with me and loving me through all the different iterations of my artistry as well as me as a person.”

She continued, adding, “I feel more clear today than I have in a long time and more pain free than I have in ages. And being free of pain on stage is a real healing experience because I’m able to dance and sing and enjoy the audience, enjoy the show, and really tell a story.”

“I don’t know that I’ve been as speechless as I am today, knowing what we’re about to do,” she said. “But if you know people ask me all the time what ‘Chromatica’ was about and in ‘Babylon,’ I say battle fair life and when I made ‘Chromatica’ I was really battling from my life.”

She acknowledged that that would be a “tough spot” for anybody, but wanted her fans to know that the Chromatica Ball was “created in the spirit of that battle to win yourself back.”

“There’s no greater prize than you,” she said. “There’s no thing more important than your own heart and your own ability to heal, and we don’t heal on our own, I don’t think, but I think it’s possible to at some point have your own back. And having your own back takes a lot of strength and time.”

Lady Gaga also revealed some details surrounding The Chromatica Ball, which was originally planned for 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, explaining, “The stage was inspired by brutalist architecture, materials, textures, crudity, transparency — a real savage and hard look at yourself, what you’ve been though.”

“I want to tell a story but with abstractions and art, so this show celebrates things that I have always loved,” she added. “Art and fashion and dance and music and technology, poetry, and the way all of those things work together.”

To conclude the touching video, Lady Gaga wished all of her fans at the show a fun time, adding, “I hope you love this thing that we made you you….I’ll see you on the dance floor.”

The Grammy winning singer’s honest video comes just two days after she expressed her fears of returning to the stage in a tweet on Friday, July 15.

“There was a time I thought I’d never be on stage again,” she wrote. “I was so sad I couldn’t even dream anything but a painful nightmare. I’ve overcome my nightmare with love, support, trust, truth, bravery, talent and dedication. I am so grateful. I’ll see you in BABYLON.”

Over the years, Lady Gaga has been candid about living with PTSD and struggles with fibromyalgia chronic pain, including how it affects her life and career. In the past, the singer had to cancel the European leg of her Joanne World Tour in 2017 as well as the final 10 dates of the tour in early 2018, citing her pain and health.

Her chronic pain was also a focal point during her Netflix documentary “Five Foot Two.”

At a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival, Lady Gaga said “It’s hard, but it’s liberating, too” when it came to discussing her health.

“There is an element and a very strong piece of me that believes that pain is a microphone,” she said. “My pain really does me no good unless I transform it into something that is. So I hope that people watching it that do struggle with chronic pain know they’re not alone.”