Prince William communicated with Lady Gaga via
FaceTime as part of the Heads Together campaign organised by the royals
to raise awareness about mental health.
The royal and the singer during
the chat discussed the #oktosay film series, a series of powerful films
that have been released which show people from all walks of life
discussing their mental health challenges.
Prince
William’s call to Lady Gaga comes after Prince Harry revealed that he
struggled to cope with his mother’s death and nearly suffered a
breakdown, yet couldn’t speak up until William encouraged him to seek
help.
His brother’s experience has brought the issues of mental health
to the top of the Heads Together agenda and William has pledged to
ensure that his children “grow up feeling able to talk about their
emotions”. During the call with Gaga which took place across continents,
with William in his London study and Gaga in her kitchen in LA, the
pair discussed how opening up and having conversations about mental
health was vital to shatter the stigma that still surrounds these
issues.
Last year, the Born This Way singer released an open letter
through her Born This Way Foundation revealing that she lives with Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD. Prince William was hugely impressed
with the openness displayed in the letter and asked her to get involved
with the Heads Together campaign.
During their conversation,
Gaga said she felt people with mental health challenges were “not hiding
anymore”, while William added that it is time
“to feel normal about
mental health – it’s the same as physical health” and that good
conversations can “really make such a difference.” Prince William and
Lady Gaga also made plans to meet in the UK in October to discuss how
they can work together and do more to tackle stigma on mental health
with a particular focus on young people, to which Lady Gaga said “we
have to make the strongest, most relentless attempt we can to normalise
mental health issues”.
Lady Gaga said:
“Even though it was
hard, the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to
share it with other people and let our generation, as well as other
generations know that if you are feeling not well in your mind that
you’re not alone and that people that you think would never have a
problem, do. We have to make the strongest, most relentless attempt we
can to normalise mental health issues, so that people feel like they can
come forward.”
The Heads Together campaign is an initiative of
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. The campaign
released a new YouGov research on the way young people talk about their
mental health, including how they increasingly use phones, emails and
social media for these conversations. The YouGov research published
shows that people aged 18-24 are talking more often than older age
groups about their mental health but that they are more likely to talk
to a friend and less comfortable talking to family members or the GP,
than other age groups.It also shows that young people are much more
likely than other age groups to start a conversation about their own
mental health via text, email or a social media chat.
Watch the video…
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