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.
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