Lady Gaga shares anorexia, bulimia battle

After half-jokingly telling Z-100 radio host Elvis Duran in August that, "My God, I think I gained, like, 25 pounds over Christmas," pop star Lady Gaga found media outlets reporting that number literally and scrutinizing her figure to such a degree that on Tuesday she revealed she has suffered from eating disorders for more than a decade.

"Bulimia and anorexia since I was 15," Gaga, 26, wrote on her fan site LittleMonsters.com on Tuesday. Accompanying the post was an unvarnished, undated photograph of her posing in a yellow bra and panties, and a link to "A Body Revolution 2013" -- a site designed, she wrote in subsequent posts, "To inspire bravery [and] BREED some ---- COMPASSION."

Almost immediately, fans began posting images of themselves with heartfelt confessions of their own body issues. These included young women with disfiguring congenital conditions and an amputee who earned Gaga's praise after mimicking the pop star's pose: "Tell me you don't want to be as brave as her," Gaga wrote, retweeting the image.

"Watching you all create a safe space online for people to be compassionate is the greatest gift you could ever give me," Gaga wrote on the site. "My weight/loss/gain since i was child has tormented me. No amount of help has ever healed my pain about it. But YOU have . . . I am not going to go on a psycho-spree because of scrutiny. This is who I am. And I am proud at any size. And I love you, and want you to be proud in any form you may take as well."