section_path: Life and career/1986–2004: Early life
section_name: 1986–2004: Early life
paragraph_text: 1986–2004: Early life
  
  Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born to an upper-middle-class Catholic family on March 28, 1986, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. Both of her parents have Italian ancestry. Her parents are Cynthia Louise (née Bissett), a philanthropist and business executive, and Internet entrepreneur Joseph Germanotta, and she has a younger sister named Natali. Brought up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Gaga said in an interview that her parents came from lower-class families and worked hard for everything. From age 11, she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school. Gaga has described her high-school self as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure". She considered herself a misfit and was mocked for "being either too provocative or too eccentric".
  
  Gaga began playing the piano at age four when her mother insisted she become "a cultured young woman". She took piano lessons and practiced through her childhood. The lessons taught her to create music by ear, which Gaga preferred over reading sheet music. Her parents encouraged her to pursue music and enrolled her in Creative Arts Camp. As a teenager, she played at open mic nights. Gaga played the lead roles of Adelaide in the play Guys and Dolls and Philia in the play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Regis High School. She also studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute for ten years. Her screen debut was a background appearance in the 2000 music video for AC/DC 's song " Stiff Upper Lip ". Gaga auditioned unsuccessfully for New York shows, though did appear in a small background role as a high-school student in a 2001 episode of The Sopranos titled " The Telltale Moozadell ". Fan interest in that episode increased when a clip of Gaga's scene surfaced online in 2010. She later said of her inclination towards music:
  
  I don't know exactly where my affinity for music comes from, but it is the thing that comes easiest to me. When I was like three years old, I may have been even younger, my mom always tells this really embarrassing story of me propping myself up and playing the keys like this because I was too young and short to get all the way up there. Just go like this on the low end of the piano... I was really, really good at piano, so my first instincts were to work so hard at practicing piano, and I might not have been a natural dancer, but I am a natural musician. That is the thing that I believe I am the greatest at.
  
  In 2003, Gaga gained early admission to Collaborative Arts Project 21, a music school at New York University (NYU)'s Tisch School of the Arts, and lived in an NYU dorm. She studied music there and improved her songwriting skills by writing essays on art, religion, social issues, and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst. In 2005, Gaga withdrew from school during the second semester of her second year to focus on her music career. That year, she also played an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV 's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show.
  
  In a 2014 interview, Gaga discussed being raped at age 19 by her producer, and later undergoing mental and physical therapy for this. She has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attributes it to the incident, stating that the trauma had changed her as a person, and would never leave her. She has credited support from doctors, family, and friends with helping her. Gaga later gave additional details about the rape, including that "the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner at my parents' house because I was vomiting and sick. Because I'd been being abused. I was locked away in a studio for months."
  
  Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born to an upper-middle-class Catholic family on March 28, 1986, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. Both of her parents have Italian ancestry. Her parents are Cynthia Louise (née Bissett), a philanthropist and business executive, and Internet entrepreneur Joseph Germanotta, and she has a younger sister named Natali. Brought up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Gaga said in an interview that her parents came from lower-class families and worked hard for everything. From age 11, she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school. Gaga has described her high-school self as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure". She considered herself a misfit and was mocked for "being either too provocative or too eccentric".
  
  Gaga began playing the piano at age four when her mother insisted she become "a cultured young woman". She took piano lessons and practiced through her childhood. The lessons taught her to create music by ear, which Gaga preferred over reading sheet music. Her parents encouraged her to pursue music and enrolled her in Creative Arts Camp. As a teenager, she played at open mic nights. Gaga played the lead roles of Adelaide in the play Guys and Dolls and Philia in the play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Regis High School. She also studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute for ten years. Her screen debut was a background appearance in the 2000 music video for AC/DC 's song " Stiff Upper Lip ". Gaga auditioned unsuccessfully for New York shows, though did appear in a small background role as a high-school student in a 2001 episode of The Sopranos titled " The Telltale Moozadell ". Fan interest in that episode increased when a clip of Gaga's scene surfaced online in 2010. She later said of her inclination towards music:
  
  I don't know exactly where my affinity for music comes from, but it is the thing that comes easiest to me. When I was like three years old, I may have been even younger, my mom always tells this really embarrassing story of me propping myself up and playing the keys like this because I was too young and short to get all the way up there. Just go like this on the low end of the piano... I was really, really good at piano, so my first instincts were to work so hard at practicing piano, and I might not have been a natural dancer, but I am a natural musician. That is the thing that I believe I am the greatest at.
  
  In 2003, Gaga gained early admission to Collaborative Arts Project 21, a music school at New York University (NYU)'s Tisch School of the Arts, and lived in an NYU dorm. She studied music there and improved her songwriting skills by writing essays on art, religion, social issues, and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst. In 2005, Gaga withdrew from school during the second semester of her second year to focus on her music career. That year, she also played an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV 's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show.
  
  In a 2014 interview, Gaga discussed being raped at age 19 by her producer, and later undergoing mental and physical therapy for this. She has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and attributes it to the incident, stating that the trauma had changed her as a person, and would never leave her. She has credited support from doctors, family, and friends with helping her. Gaga later gave additional details about the rape, including that "the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner at my parents' house because I was vomiting and sick. Because I'd been being abused. I was locked away in a studio for months."