Lady GaGa used marijuana to numb the pain of an agonising hip injury.

The 28-year-old singer has made no secret of the fact that she has used the drug in the past, but she has now admitted that her painful injury - which caused her to end her 'Born This Way Ball' world tour earlier this year - led to her becoming dependent on smoking weed.

She told Attitude magazine: ''I was just numbing, numbing, numbing myself, then sleeping it off, then getting on stage, killing it in pain, then getting off and smoking, smoking, smoking, not knowing what pain was.''

The 'Applause' singer was suffering from a debilitating hip injury which was the result of rigorous performances whilst on her world tour. She underwent surgery to repair cartilage damage and was bound to a wheelchair, forcing her to cancel the remaining 25 shows of her tour.

Gaga, whose new album 'ARTPOP' is to be released on November 11, also feels that experiences she had during the early years of her music career contributed to her drug use.

She admitted: ''I went through terrible experiences early in my career climbing through swine and swine of men in the music industry - just trying to get somebody to listen to my music and take me seriously as a songwriter instead of trying to get me to b*** them.''