If Lady Gaga seems more tame and balanced since returning to the spotlight with her 5^th solo studio album, “Joanne,” there’s a pretty good explanation for it. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the 30-year-old cover girl of their December issue explained why she took time off before the album.

“I was able to get off the train of endless work I’d been on, which was quite abusive to my body and my mind, and have some silence and some space around me,” she told HB’s Fashion Editor. “I wanted to experience music again the way I did when I was younger, when I just had to make it, instead of worrying what everybody thinks or being obsessed with things that aren’t important.”

Gaga also describes fame as “the best drug that’s ever existed” but admits that as she’s matured she is now more concerned with success that is based in truth as opposed to “more attention, more fame, more accolades.”

Now we know why she calls it a “Fame Monster.”