Even Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom appears to be a Lady Gaga fan. Try to prove her wrong. But who is Lady Gaga (May 15th in Gelredome) actually?
The list of questions we want to ask Lady Gaga appears to have no end. After all, she is one of the most fascinating singers we know. Unlike other celebrities with that mark, Lady G. really is fascinating. An artist in heart and soul who sings catchy pop songs. Kind of a genius, but weird at the same time. Who is Lady Gaga really? It’s our mission to find that out.
However, there is only one question that takes over when we are waiting for her arrival in a fancy sushi bar: What will she wear? Her transparent bubble dress? Her fire-spitting bra? Lingerie with fake blood? After all, Gaga never looks boring. Just the thought itself that she ever touched something so ordinary as a tracksuit… When La Gaga strides our way, we see an impossible short miniskirt, a bustier that leaves little to our imagination and big black sunglasses on her nose. For being Gaga she actually looks very ordinary. Just when we wonder how to call her – on one way or another we suspect that her real name Stefani Germanotta won’t do any good – she reaches out her hand and introduces herself as ‘Gaga’. Of course.
Alive on stage
Gaga turns down the cocktail we offered her and instead she orders some sashimi and salad without dressing. She will perform in front of a sold out hall in a few hours and she wants to stay clear. That’s what it’s all about for Gaga: a life in the spotlights. And why would she take the risk to throw that away? “My friends make jokes about that I’m lifeless until I get on stage,” Gaga says. “So at this moment I’m dead.”
She appears quite lively in front of us but when we see her on stage that night she gives of a different kind of energy. While she lies down on her stomach on stage she screams to her worshipping fans: “I’m just like Tinkerbell. Did you know she dies when you don’t applaud for her?” Gaga jumps on her glittery feet and screams : “Scream for me! Or do you want to see me die?” The audience goes crazy as they scream her name like they really believe that their idol will drop dead if they don’t scream loud enough.
At the age of 23 Gaga has become the superstar she has always wanted to be. Her debut album The Fame sold together with the bonustrack-cd The Fame Monster has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. She has won 2 Grammy Awards and she is the first artist ever who became number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on the American Billboard charts for her first 5 singles.
“From day one I have believed in her because she wanted this so badly,” says Vincent Herbert, the producer who discovered Gaga. It didn’t take long before other celebrities got impressed by this pop phenomena. Kanye West asked her to go on tour with him and rumor has it that even Michael Jackson wanted to work with her. Gaga also performed alongside Beyoncé in Beyoncé’s hitvideo Video Phone. “She cooperated so enthusiastic on the song and videoclip,” says Beyoncé. “We hit it off immediately.”
Crazy ambitiousness
If Beyoncé would have felt the same click when she and Gaga went to school together remains a question. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta – the name on her birth certificate – tried so hard to fit in at a private school for girls in New York. “I had a very big nose, curly brown hair and I was too fat,” says Gaga who confirms nor denies she has had plastic surgery. “I was being laughed at.”
The years after school, life didn’t get easier: She got rejected over and over when she tried to make a career as a singer. “I started writing songs when I was eleven years old,” says Lady Gaga, who furthermore is an experienced pianist – she started playing the piano when she was four years old. “But they throwed lots of **** to my head when I played my songs. I never fitted in the straitjacket, one time I was ‘too poppy’ and the other time I was ‘too theatrical’.”
The ‘Me vs the world’ attitude she then developed, she still has it. “I am an outsider,” says the woman who probably is the most encouraged artist at the moment. “I’ve always had this crazy ambitiousness, in a way only a few people understood.”
Man-eater
On the list of people who don’t understand her there is at least one ex-lover. “I had a boyfriend who told me I was never going to make it, I would never win a Grammy, never have hit songs. He hoped I would fail. I told him: ‘There will be a day that we won’t be together anymore and won’t be able to order a cup of coffee without seeing me or hearing me.’” Of course there are lots of women who say these things to ex-boyfriends who are jerks. If you would’ve heard that conversation back then, you’d probably roll your eyes about the things she said. But it’s a fact now: Gaga did it. And these days you would have to be crazy not to think that she can reach everything she wants. And to have every man she wants… But at this moment, her love life is at low ebb, so she can focus on her nonstop tour schedule. She realizes that the search for Mr. Gaga is a true challenge especially because of her growing popularity. “For everyone woman that has a good career it’s hard to find Mr. Right. Most men are being intimidated by successful women.” And by bra’s that spit fire…
That she hasn’t found Mr. Right yet doesn’t mean that Gaga spends every night alone since her breakthrough. “I wanted to sleep with as many as rock n roll types as possible and I experienced great fun by doing so. But I also called ex-boyfriends and met new guys.” A woman who dances around in her underwear on stage and who tells her fans that she feels ‘extraordinary ****ty’ today… It has to be a stiff job for the average man. Gaga confirms it: “If I get a new boyfriend I’ll tell him: hang on, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride!” Gaga also mentions that her perfect Saturday night consists out of watching horror movies and eating pizza in bed. Actually she, when it comes to love, quite normal. Kind of.
Dreams or love
While a man eating pizza while watching horror with her is missing in her life, Gaga is happy with the admiring she gets from her fans, an admiring that still feels like being in love. All of her concerts are sold out. And every performance, may it be a concert, award show or television performance creates an instant buzz on the internet. No, it’s no coincidence. Gaga wanted it to be this way. “Some women choose to follow their husband, others follow their dreams,” Gaga tells Cosmo before she leaves. “If you doubt which way to choose, remember that your career will never tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”
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MORE GAGA
For the people who never get enough of Gaga: seven fascinating facts…
1. She has sworn that her fans will never see her on anything but high heels and therefore the paparazzi will not be able to ruin her image. “Hollywood legends who put the trash outside, that ruins showbiz.”
2. She performed together with Elton John during the last Grammy Awards. Right before the performance, Gaga burst out into tears because she was so impressed by Elton. “I ruined my makeup, because I had to cry of happiness.”
3. She hates talent shows like X-Factor because ‘the life of a musician isn’t a contest.’
4. Singer Akon added Gaga to his recordlabel and by doing so he has –so he says- secured his old age: “I’m so happy that I believed in her, thanks to her I am already able to retire.” In the beginning her image was a problem for the recordlabel, but La Gaga didn’t give up and hold on to her own idea.
5. La G. believes that the spirit of her father’s deceased sister (she used to be poet and painter) lives forward in her and that she (Gaga) has to continue her (father’s deceased sister) work. She has never met her aunt.
6. She openly admits to have sniffed ‘bags full of cocaine’ while listening to The Cure. With her father’s support she became clean.
7. She doesn’t think her own ideas are weird, she rather sees them as very original.
