NEW YORK: After hip surgery and parting ways with her longtime manager, Lady Gaga says things are looking up.

“I’ve very centered now. I meditate a lot. I’m happy. I am more sober than I’ve ever been,” the singer said interview this week. “It’s a very happy time in my life.”

Last year, Gaga parted ways with longtime manager Troy Carter, who helped the pop star achieve multiplatinum status, dominate the pop charts and win multiple Grammy Awards. She said she was overworked and that greed led to their split. “Part of what was making my sort of artistic experience so unpleasant was that I felt that I was not able to truly freely fly as an artist,” she said. “In some ways my talents were not being used to their full potential.”

Gaga says part of her happier state of mind comes from working with Tony Bennett on the album “Cheek to Cheek,” out on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old is currently on an international tour that wraps Nov. 24 in Paris.

While other singers have backed out of performing in Tel Aviv, Gaga made the decision to perform there this week.

"I was very confident based on my relationships with lots of internal, political people. We’re very lucky to have great relationships with the White House. They let us know it would be very safe while we were there, and I hope to share that with the world so that they know it is safe to be in Tel Aviv right now. But I have to say, and I don’t mean this as a suggestion that anything bad would have happened, but I’m a gypsy and I live around the world, so in my mind when I was staying in Tel Aviv — I say this on my song “Gypsy” on “ARTPOP“: “Be my home just for the day” — that would have been my home while I was there and it was. ... I felt a beautiful energy when I was there."