Pop sensation Lady Gaga has opened up about why she felt the need to speak out about the body shaming that surrounded her following her dazzling Super Bowl half-time show. 

After her incredible performance, she shared a post on Instagram about the negative remarks, which read:

"I heard my body is a topic of conversation so I wanted to say, I'm proud of my body and you should be proud of yours too. No matter who you are or what you do. I could give you a million reasons why you don't need to cater to anyone or anything to succeed. Be you, and be relentlessly you. That's the stuff of champions. thank you so much everyone for supporting me. I love you guys."

Earlier today, during an interview with Ryan Seacrest she explained that she felt it was important to talk about the comments because she saw how much the situation had upset her fans:

"I couldn't ignore that I saw my fans talking about that and that it upset them. I think other people maybe that are just like normal girls and guys who either have their own body image issues or just didn't think it was a nice thing to say [were hurt]. I just thought I would impart some of my positive attitude about it so that they felt like they had someone who was strong on their side."

Watch her half-time show below: