lady gaga brief biography

Pop icon Lady Gaga's debut album, 'The Fame,' included the hits "Just Dance" and "Poker Face." She also won a Golden Globe for her role in 'American Horror Story' and an Oscar nomination for her co-starring role in 'A Star Is Born.'

Who Is Lady Gaga?

Early life and career.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on March 28, 1986, in Yonkers, New York, to Cynthia and Joseph Germanotta. Now known as Lady Gaga (the inspiration for her name came from the Queen song "Radio Ga-Ga"), she has become an international pop star.

Gaga learned to play the piano by the age of 4. At the age of 11, she was accepted to the Juilliard School in Manhattan, but instead attended a private Catholic school in the city. She continued studying music and performing, writing her first piano ballad at the age of 13, and she held her first performance in a New York nightclub at the age of 14.

A few years later, Gaga was granted early admission to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts — she was one of only 20 students in the world to receive the honor of early acceptance. While there, she studied music and worked on her songwriting skills. She later withdrew from school to find creative inspiration. To make ends meet, she took three jobs, including a stint as a gogo dancer, while she honed her performance-art act.

In 2005, Lady Gaga was briefly signed by Def Jam Records, but was dropped just months later. Being dropped by the label propelled the singer to perform on her own in clubs and venues on New York City's Lower East Side. There, she collaborated with several rock bands, and began her experimentation with fashion.

Debut Album: 'The Fame'

In 2007, at the age of 20, Gaga began work at Interscope Records as a songwriter for other artists on the label, including Britney Spears , New Kids on the Block and The Pussycat Dolls. R&B singer Akon discovered Gaga while she was performing a burlesque show that she created, called "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue." Impressed, Akon signed the performer to his label under the Interscope umbrella, Kon Live. Through 2007 and 2008, Gaga wrote and recorded her debut album, The Fame . The record received positive reviews and was successful in the United States. With the help of her own creative team, "Haus of Gaga," the performer also began to make a name for herself internationally.

'Just Dance,' 'Poker Face'

Lady Gaga's debut single, "Just Dance," was released to radio in early 2008, and received both popular and commercial acclaim. The song was then nominated for a Grammy Award (for best dance recording) in 2008. The song lost to Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," but this didn't keep Gaga from reaching No. 1 on the mainstream pop charts in January 2009. The second single off The Fame , "Poker Face," earned Gaga even more success. The song topped singles charts in almost every category, and in almost every country. Both songs were produced by Akon's affiliate RedOne, who co-wrote most of Lady Gaga's album.

'Born This Way'

Later in 2008, Lady Gaga opened for the newly reformed New Kids on the Block. She also collaborated with them on the song "Big Girl Now" from the group's album The Block . The following year, Gaga released an album of eight songs, The Fame Monster , followed by 2011's Born This Way . In 2013, Lady Gaga released her third studio album, Artpop . The album didn't resonate as strongly with her audience as her previous works. Among the shake-ups in her inner circle, she and her manager parted ways.

Working With Tony and Golden Globe

In 2014, she released an album of jazz duets with crooner Tony Bennett entitled Cheek to Cheek , which later won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. In an interview with Parade , Lady Gaga said of her latest collaboration, “Working with Tony has reaffirmed everything I knew but that you start to forget when your life changes and it gets really noisy. For ­Tony, it’s all about great music.”

Gaga continued to showcase her versatility and strength as a vocalist at the Academy Awards telecast in February 2015, paying tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Sound of Music and actress/singer Julie Andrews by performing selections from the musical.

In 2021, Gaga and Bennett released their second collaborative album Love for Sale , which won best traditional pop vocal album at the Grammys in 2022.

Golden Globe for 'American Horror Story'

Later that year, Gaga also showed her gifts as an actress by co-starring in American Horror Story: Hotel , earning a Golden Globe for her portrayal of The Countess. At the ceremony, a visibly stunned and emotional Gaga acknowledged that acting was her first dream before she embraced music, and thanked her fellow cast members and producer Ryan Murphy for their support. Gaga returned to the show for its sixth season, playing a witch in American Horror Story: Roanoke.

In February 2016, Gaga, joined by guitarist/producer Nile Rodgers, performed a tribute to the late David Bowie . Paying homage to one of her biggest musical heroes, a red-wigged Gaga sang a short medley of Bowie's hits. She also performed at the 88th Annual Academy Awards, performing "Til It Happens to You" after being introduced by then-Vice President Joe Biden . The song was from the 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground , which looked at the issue of rape on college campuses. Assault survivors were brought to the stage toward the close of the song, with the performance earning a standing ovation.

Success With 'Joanne'

In October 2016, Gaga released her fifth studio album, Joanne , her fourth album to reach No. 1 in the United States and top the charts in countries around the world. Partnering with producer Mark Ronson, Gaga tapped into her own life story for the album that is named after her aunt and father's sister, Joanne Germanotta, who died of lupus complications at the age of 19 before Gaga was born. “Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history ... this is what makes you strong,” Lady Gaga told People magazine . “It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in. Joanne is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.”

She also told People that her relationships influenced the stories she tells in Joanne . “When you listen to the album, it’s clear the influence that all the men in my life have made on this record," she said. "That’s at the center of it, as well: I always wanted to be a good girl. And Joanne was such a good girl. But I have such a rebellious spirit, and my father was always very angry. He drank because of his sister’s death. I was trying to understand him through making this record, and in that, also trying to understand why I love men that are cowboys.”

Gaga launched the Joanne World Tour in support of her latest album in August 2017. She later nabbed a Best Pop Solo Performance Grammy for the album's title track.

Super Bowl Performances

In 2016, Lady Gaga performed the national anthem at Super Bowl 50, and she returned the following year to headline the Super Bowl LI halftime show. She began her powerhouse performance on the roof of the NRG Stadium in Houston, singing parts of "God Bless America" and "This Land is Your Land" and reciting an excerpt of the pledge of allegiance before diving through the air suspended by wires to the stage. Her halftime show included a medley of her iconic songs including "Edge of Glory," "Bad Romance," "Poker Face," "Born This Way," "Telephone," "Just Dance," as well as "Million Reasons" from her album Joanne .

'A Star Is Born'

In 2016, it was announced that Gaga had been cast in a remake of A Star Is Born as Ally, a role previously inhabited by Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand . She was slated to co-star with Bradley Cooper , who was also making his directorial debut with the project.

A Star Is Born became a hit with audiences upon its October 2018 release, grossing an impressive $400 million globally. The co-stars both earned Academy Award nominations for their performances, while their duet for the film, "Shallow," produced Golden Globe, Grammy and Oscar wins for Gaga.

Las Vegas Residency

On December 19, 2017, Gaga announced via Instagram that she had signed on for a Las Vegas residency. The following August, she confirmed that she would begin her residency at MGM Resorts' Park Theater at the end of the year, performing two separate shows over 27 dates: Lady Gaga Enigma, a collection of her most popular songs, and Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano, which features stripped-down versions of her greatest hits as well as selections from the Great American Songbook.

'Chromatica' and 'One World'

With her sixth studio album, Chromatica , on the way, Gaga in February 2020 released the dance-worthy single "Stupid Love," her first new music in three years, along with a typically eye-catching video that showed her defeating the forces of evil with her "Kindness punks." Her follow-up single with Ariana Grande , "Rain on Me," dropped in late May, one week before the release of the well-received Chromatica .

Meanwhile, Gaga had teamed with the international advocacy group Global Citizen to organize the "One World: Together At Home" virtual concert in April. Featuring performances from luminaries like Paul McCartney , Elton John and Taylor Swift , the event raised more than $127 million to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Personal Life

On Valentine’s Day 2015, Lady Gaga became engaged to Chicago Fire actor Taylor Kinney. After five years together, in July 2016, it was reported that the couple called off their engagement and parted ways.

Gaga then got engaged to her agent, Christian Carino, in summer 2017. In February 2019, after the singer attended the Grammys without her fiancé, a representative confirmed that the engagement was off.

In early 2020, the entertainer extraordinaire went public with her relationship with tech CEO Michael Polansky.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1986
• Birth date: March 28, 1986
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: New York City
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Pop icon Lady Gaga's debut album, 'The Fame,' included the hits "Just Dance" and "Poker Face." She also won a Golden Globe for her role in 'American Horror Story' and an Oscar nomination for her co-starring role in 'A Star Is Born.'
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• New York University's Tisch School of the Arts
• Cultural Associations
• Italian American

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

Famous Musicians

Carrie Underwood Is Expanding Her Music Empire

Dolly Parton Wrote “Jolene” in a Flash of Jealousy

Céline Dion Gives Emotional Health Update on IG

Tyler Childers

Amy Winehouse

Justin Timberlake

The Best Music Documentaries

10 Facts About “Need A Favor” Singer Jelly Roll

Eric Carmen and The Making of “Hungry Eyes”

• Get Featured
• Our Patreon

Lady Gaga: Biography, Success Story, Life Facts

Lady Gaga’s biography is a remarkable success story, filled with numerous achievements ranging from Grammy Awards to Golden Globes, which have established her as an icon in the music industry and beyond. Her chart-topping albums, The Fame and Born This Way , and her groundbreaking contributions to the movie “A Star Is Born” have dominated the charts and earned her numerous prestigious awards. She received the coveted Tricon Award at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards. Enjoy reading captivating Lady Gaga’s life story.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, born on March 28, 1986, is known as Lady Gaga. The American singer, songwriter, and actress is celebrated for her remarkable image transformations and versatility in the entertainment industry.

During her teenage years, Lady Gaga began her journey in the entertainment industry by performing at open mic nights and participating in school plays. She honed her skills at Collaborative Arts Project 21, a part of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. However, Gaga dropped out of the institution to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. Although Def Jam Recordings canceled her contract, she persevered and succeeded as a songwriter at Sony/ATV Music Publishing. In 2007, Lady Gaga landed a joint deal with KonLive Distribution and Interscope Records.

In 2008, she achieved a remarkable breakthrough with her debut studio album,  The Fame . The album featured chart-topping singles like “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” that helped her gain immense popularity and recognition. The album was later reissued to include the extended play The Fame Monster in 2009, which produced some of her most popular hits to date, such as “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” and “Alejandro.” The Fame Monster added a new dimension to her music and showcased her incredible talent as a musician, singer, and songwriter. The EP’s success cemented her position as one of her time’s most influential and innovative artists.

Lady Gaga’s subsequent five albums debuted at the top of the US  Billboard  200.  Born This Way  (2011), her second full-length album, explored electronic rock and techno-pop, selling over one million copies in its first week. The title track set records as the fastest-selling song on the iTunes Store. Following her third album,  Artpop  (2013), Gaga released the jazz album  Cheek to Cheek  (2014) with Tony Bennett and the soft rock album  Joanne  (2016). She achieved critical acclaim for her roles in  American Horror Story: Hotel  (2015–2016) and  A Star Is Born  (2018).

Her contributions to the soundtrack of  A Star Is Born , especially the chart-topping single “Shallow,” made Gaga the first woman to win an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Grammy Award in a single year. In 2020, she returned to dance-pop with her sixth studio album,  Chromatica , featuring the number-one single “Rain on Me.” Gaga’s diverse career includes her second collaborative album with Bennett,  Love for Sale , and her role in the biopic  House of Gucci  in 2021.

Lady Gaga has sold an astonishing 170 million records globally. She has a unique record of having four singles selling over 10 million copies each. Lady Gaga has won numerous accolades, including 18 MTV Video Music Awards, 13 Grammy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. She has been recognized as  Billboard ‘s Artist of the Year (2010) and Woman of the Year (2015) and has been listed in Forbes’ power rankings and VH1’s Greatest Women in Music (2012). Time magazine has also acknowledged her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010 and 2019 and included her in their All-Time 100 Fashion Icons list.

In addition to her musical accomplishments, Lady Gaga is dedicated to philanthropy and activism, focusing on mental health awareness and LGBT rights. She established the  Born This Way Foundation , a non-profit organization supporting the well-being of young people. Gaga’s entrepreneurial ventures include  Haus Labs , a vegan cosmetics brand launched in 2019.

1986–2004: Early Years

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, renowned as  Lady Gaga , was born on March 28, 1986, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York City. Hailing from an upper-middle-class Catholic family, Gaga’s parents proudly took Italian ancestry. Her mother, Cynthia Louise (née Bissett), is recognized as a philanthropist and business executive, while her father is the Internet entrepreneur Joseph Germanotta. In addition to her parents, Gaga has a younger sister named Natali.

Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Lady Gaga shared in an interview that her parents, despite their current status, originated from lower-class backgrounds and diligently worked for their achievements. At 11, she began her education at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, an esteemed private all-girls Roman Catholic school. Reflecting on her high-school years, Gaga described herself as “very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined,” yet admitted to feeling a bit insecure. As a self-acknowledged misfit, she faced ridicule for being perceived as “too provocative or too eccentric.”

Lady Gaga’s musical journey began early, with her mother’s insistence that she become a “cultured young woman,” leading her to play the piano at the tender age of four. Piano lessons and a commitment to practice marked her childhood. Gaga developed an ability to create music by ear, a skill she favored over reading sheet music. Encouraged by her parents, she joined the Creative Arts Camp, further nurturing her musical talents.

During her teenage years, Lady Gaga ventured into the realm of open mic nights, honing her skills and setting the stage for her future musical endeavors. Her theatrical prowess was showcased when she played lead roles in school productions such as Adelaide in  Guys and Dolls  and Philia in  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum  at Regis High School. Gaga’s commitment to her craft extended to ten years of studying method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

Despite facing initial setbacks, including unsuccessful auditions for New York shows, Lady Gaga made a brief appearance in a 2001 episode of  The Sopranos , titled “The Telltale Moozadell,” portraying a minor background role as a high-school student.

In 2003, at 17, Lady Gaga embarked on her journey into the world of music. She secured early admission to Collaborative Arts Project 21, a renowned music school at New York University’s (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts, where she resided in an NYU dormitory. Gaga’s time at NYU was dedicated to studying music, and she honed her songwriting skills through essays exploring art, religion, social issues, and politics. Her academic pursuits included a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst.

However, in 2005, during the second semester of her second year, Gaga made a pivotal decision. She withdrew from school, redirecting her focus entirely toward her burgeoning music career. This transformative year also saw Gaga making a surprising appearance as an unwitting diner customer on MTV’s  Boiling Points , a reality television prank show.

In a candid 2014 interview, Lady Gaga revealed a deeply personal and traumatic experience. At the age of 19, she disclosed that she had been a victim of sexual assault. Subsequently, Gaga underwent both mental and physical therapy to cope with the aftermath of this harrowing event. The incident left her with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition she openly attributes to the assault. Gaga acknowledged the crucial role of support from doctors, family, and friends in her healing journey.

Providing additional details about the assault, Gaga disclosed that the assailant had left her pregnant on a street corner near her parent’s house after the attack. This distressing episode unfolded because of the abuse she had endured, recounting a period of being secluded in a studio for months.

2005–2007: Early Career

In the pivotal years of 2005 to 2007, Lady Gaga’s musical odyssey commenced, laying the foundation for her extraordinary career. In 2005, Gaga contributed her vocals to two songs alongside hip-hop artist Melle Mel for an audio book accompanying Cricket Casey’s children’s novel, The Portal in the Park . Concurrently, she collaborated with friends from NYU to form the SGBand, making waves by playing gigs around New York and becoming a fixture in the vibrant downtown Lower East Side club scene.

Following the 2006 Songwriters Hall of Fame New Songwriters Showcase at the Cutting Room in June, Gaga’s talent caught the eye of talent scout Wendy Starland. Starland’s recommendation led Gaga to the doorstep of music producer Rob Fusari. The collaboration unfolded with Gaga making daily trips to New Jersey, working on developing her songs, and crafting new material. Their creative journey also saw the emergence of a personal connection, with Fusari claiming to be the first to christen her “Lady Gaga” in May 2006, drawing inspiration from Queen’s iconic song, “Radio Ga Ga.” Their romantic entanglement persisted until January 2007.

Fusari and Gaga co-founded “Team Lovechild, LLC,” a venture to propel her career forward. Together, they recorded and produced electropop tracks, sending their creations to industry executives. Joshua Sarubin, the head of Artists and Repertoire (A&R) at Def Jam Recordings, responded positively, leading to Gaga’s signing with Def Jam in September 2006. However, the association was short-lived, as Gaga was dropped from the label three months later. Undeterred, she returned to her family home for Christmas and redirected her focus.

Gaga immersed herself in the world of neo-burlesque shows during this period, considering it a representation of freedom. During these performances, she crossed paths with performance artist Lady Starlight, a crucial influence in molding Gaga’s onstage persona. The duo, known as “Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue,” presented “The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow,” a live performance art piece paying homage to 1970s variety acts. Their artistic collaboration extended to the 2007 Lollapalooza music festival.

Lady Gaga is a famous singer who started her music career in the electronic dance music genre. Over time, she began incorporating pop melodies and was influenced by the glam rock style of David Bowie and Queen. Gaga was discovered by a producer named Vincent Herbert, who signed her to a record label called Streamline Records. She also secured a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV, which helped her write songs for famous artists like Britney Spears, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. Later, she signed a joint deal with musician Akon’s label, KonLive, which made her his “franchise player.”

In 2007, Lady Gaga collaborated with a music producer named RedOne for a week to create her debut album. She signed a contract with a record label named Cherrytree Records, a subsidiary of the larger company called Interscope. However, some radio stations were reluctant to play Gaga’s music, as they thought it was too daring, too dance-focused, and not mainstream enough. In response, Gaga boldly declared , “My name is Lady Gaga, I’ve been on the music scene for years, and I’m telling you, this is what’s next.”

2011–2014: Born This Way , Artpop , and Cheek to Cheek

The period spanning 2011 to 2014 marked a dynamic phase in Lady Gaga’s career, defined by the release of albums  Born This Way ,  Artpop , and the collaborative jazz venture with Tony Bennett,  Cheek to Cheek .

In February 2011, Gaga unleashed the empowering anthem “Born This Way,” the lead single from her eponymous studio album. The track rapidly achieved the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling single on iTunes, selling over a million copies in just five days. Debuting atop the Billboard Hot 100, “Born This Way” became the 1,000th number-one single in the history of the charts. The subsequent singles, “Judas” and “The Edge of Glory,” secured top 10 positions in the US and the UK.

Born This Way , released on May 23, 2011, triumphed by debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales exceeding 1.1 million copies. The album’s success extended globally, selling eight million copies worldwide. Acknowledged by Rolling Stone as one of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” in 2020,  Born This Way  produced additional hits with “You and I” and “Marry the Night.” Notably, “Bloody Mary” experienced a resurgence and was released as a single in 2022.

Gaga’s multifaceted talents expanded into various collaborations in 2011, including partnerships with Tony Bennett, Elton John, The Lonely Island, and Justin Timberlake. In 2012, she embarked on the Born This Way Ball tour, amassing a global tour gross of $183.9 million despite its premature conclusion due to a hip injury requiring surgery.

Simultaneously, Gaga delved into acting, featuring as an animated version of herself in a 2012 episode of  The Simpsons  titled “Lisa Goes Gaga.” In the fragrance industry, she introduced  Lady Gaga Fame  in 2012 and  Eau de Gaga  in 2014.

Gaga’s artistic evolution continued with her third studio album,  Artpop , released on November 6, 2013. Though met with mixed reviews,  Artpop  secured its position atop the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide by July 2014. The album’s singles “Applause” and “Do What U Want” featuring R. Kelly added to Gaga’s chart successes.

In 2013 and 2014, Gaga’s ventures extended to diverse realms, from hosting  Saturday Night Live  and her Thanksgiving Day television special to a seven-day concert residency at New York’s Roseland Ballroom. She embarked on the ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour, earning $83 million.

The transition to the jazz genre unfolded in September 2014 with the release of  Cheek to Cheek , a collaborative jazz album with Tony Bennett. Rooted in their friendship, the album produced hits like “Anything Goes” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love.” Garnering favorable reviews,  Cheek to Cheek  secured Gaga’s third consecutive number-one album on the Billboard 200 and clinched a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. The collaboration extended to a concert special,  Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live! , and a subsequent tour from December 2014 to August 2015, signaling yet another facet of Gaga’s eclectic artistic journey.

2015–2017: American Horror Story , Joanne , and Super Bowl Performances

From 2015 to 2017, Lady Gaga navigated a compelling journey that unfolded through her engagement, a metamorphic shift in her music career, a captivating stint in television, and unforgettable performances at prestigious events.

In February 2015, Gaga announced her engagement to Taylor Kinney. Following the lukewarm reception of  Artpop , Gaga embraced a transformative phase, evidenced by her acclaimed performance at the 87th Academy Awards. Her rendition of a medley from  The Sound of Music  in tribute to Julie Andrews garnered over 214,000 interactions per minute on Facebook, marking a pivotal moment. Gaga and Diane Warren co-wrote “Til It Happens to You” for the documentary  The Hunting Ground , earning them a Satellite Award for Best Original Song and an Academy Award nomination. In 2015, she was honored as Billboard Woman of the Year and received the Contemporary Icon Award at the Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards.

Her venture into acting materialized in  American Horror Story: Hotel  (2015–2016), where she portrayed hotel owner Elizabeth. This earned her the Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards. Gaga’s multifaceted talents extended to the fashion world with collaborations and accolades at the Fashion Los Angeles Awards.

In February 2016, Gaga delivered a trifecta of noteworthy performances—singing the US national anthem at Super Bowl 50, paying tribute to David Bowie at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, and performing “Til It Happens to You” at the 88th Academy Awards. Her Super Bowl halftime show in 2017, featuring a mesmerizing display of lighted drones, attracted 117.5 million viewers in the United States, becoming the third most-watched halftime show in Super Bowl history.

Amidst personal developments, Gaga’s engagement to Taylor Kinney ended in July 2016 due to career-related challenges. She furthered her acting career with a role as Scathach in  American Horror Story: Roanoke  (2016). Concurrently, Gaga released her fifth album,  Joanne , in October 2016. Named after her late aunt, the album secured Gaga’s fourth number one on the Billboard 200. Hits like “Perfect Illusion” and “Million Reasons” showcased her musical versatility.

The pinnacle of Gaga’s performances during this period included headlining the Super Bowl LI halftime show, drawing acclaim, and setting records. She continued with the Joanne World Tour, documented in the Netflix film  Gaga: Five Foot Two , revealing her struggles with chronic pain. Despite canceling the tour’s last ten shows in 2018 due to fibromyalgia, the Joanne World Tour grossed an impressive $95 million from 842,000 tickets sold.

2018–2019: A Star Is Born and Las Vegas residency

In a spectacular turn of events from 2018 to 2019, Lady Gaga proved her artistic prowess in music on the big screen and the Las Vegas stage. In March 2018, Gaga took a stand for gun control by supporting the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, DC. Her versatility was evident as she covered Elton John’s “Your Song” for his tribute album,  Revamp .

However, the year’s highlight was her lead role as Ally in Bradley Cooper’s remake of the 1937 classic  A Star Is Born . The film, released worldwide in October 2018, received critical acclaim for its compelling narrative and Gaga’s outstanding performance. Her portrayal of Ally earned her several awards, including the National Board of Review and Critics’ Choice awards for Best Actress.

The musical magic continued as Gaga and Cooper co-wrote and produced most of the songs on the film’s soundtrack. The lead single, “Shallow,” released on September 27, 2018, topped the charts globally and became an instant classic. The soundtrack, comprising 17 original songs, received praise from critics and debuted at number one in multiple countries. Gaga’s extraordinary achievement of five US number-one albums in the 2010s set her apart, securing her place in music history.

“Shallow” not only won Gaga four Grammy Awards but also earned her an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Critics’ Choice Award, and Satellite Award for Best Original Song. Gaga’s live performances of the song at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards and the 91st Academy Awards were iconic moments.

Amidst personal developments, Gaga announced her engagement to talent agent Christian Carino in October but unfortunately ended the engagement in February 2019. Undeterred, she embraced new ventures, signing up for a concert residency in Las Vegas called  Lady Gaga Enigma + Jazz & Piano  at the MGM Park Theater. The residency showcased two distinct shows:  Enigma , featuring theatricality and Gaga’s greatest hits, and  Jazz & Piano , highlighting tracks from the Great American Songbook and stripped-down versions of her songs.

Not limited to music and acting, Gaga ventured into the makeup world with her vegan makeup line,  Haus Laboratories , which launched in September 2019 exclusively on Amazon . The lineup of 40 products, including liquid eyeliners, lip glosses, and face mask stickers, quickly soared to number one on Amazon’s best-selling lipsticks list, showcasing Gaga’s influence across diverse creative domains.

2020–present years:  Chromatica ,  Love for Sale , and Other Film Projects

In the ever-evolving saga of Lady Gaga’s career, the period from 2020 to the present has been marked by chart-topping music, film accomplishments, and myriad ventures.

In February 2020, Gaga embarked on a new personal journey, entering a relationship with entrepreneur Michael Polansky. This romantic chapter coincided with the release of her sixth studio album,  Chromatica , on May 29, 2020. The album, met with positive reviews, swiftly claimed the number-one spot on the US charts. It marked Gaga’s sixth consecutive chart-topper in the country and reached similar heights in numerous other territories globally, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, and the UK. Anticipation for  Chromatica  was teased with two singles, “Stupid Love” on February 28, 2020, and the collaboration “Rain on Me” with Ariana Grande on May 22, which won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

Gaga’s undeniable talent and influence were further recognized at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, where she secured five awards, including the inaugural Tricon Award. The following September, she lent her voice to Valentino’s Voce Viva fragrance campaign, featuring a stripped-down version of “Sine from Above,” a track from  Chromatica .

The year 2021 saw Gaga making history as she performed the US national anthem during Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on January 20. However, personal challenges arose when her dog walker, Ryan Fischer, was shot in Hollywood, and two of her French Bulldogs were taken. Gaga’s resilience shone through as she offered a substantial reward for their return. Although the dogs were later returned unharmed, legal proceedings followed, resulting in a 21-year prison sentence for the assailant, James Howard Jackson.

In 2021, Gaga delved into collaborations and new releases as a woman of many talents. In April, she partnered with Champagne brand Dom Pérignon and released her third remix album,  Dawn of Chromatica , in September. Following this, her second collaborative album with Tony Bennett,  Love for Sale , dropped on September 30. The album received positive reviews and won the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album award at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.

Gaga’s film journey continued with her portrayal of Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s  House of Gucci , released on November 24, 2021. Her immersive performance, including the New York Film Critics Circle Award, earned acclaim. Beyond acting, Gaga showcased her musical prowess by co-writing the song “Hold My Hand” for the film  Top Gun: Maverick , which she performed live at the 95th Academy Awards.

In July 2022, Gaga kicked off  The Chromatica Ball  stadium tour, which spanned twenty dates and grossed an impressive $112.4 million. The tour established her as the highest-grossing female artist of 2022.

As of April 2023, Gaga added another feather to her cap by being appointed as the co-chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities by President Joe Biden. Further, she collaborated with the Rolling Stones on the song “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” which was featured in their album  Hackney Diamonds  (2023). Looking ahead, Gaga’s star continues to rise as she is set to star alongside Joaquin Phoenix in  Joker: Folie à Deux , slated for release in 2024.

From an early age, Lady Gaga, with her distinctive plaited hair and vibrant style, found inspiration in an eclectic mix of musical legends. The pop prowess of Madonna and the groundbreaking charisma of David Bowie played crucial roles in shaping Gaga’s artistic vision. Growing up, her musical landscape was painted with the sounds of Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Whitney Houston, Elton John, Prince, En Vogue, TLC, Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson, and Blondie, each contributing to the mosaic of her musical identity.

Gaga’s diverse musical palette spans dance-pop sensations like Madonna and Michael Jackson to the flamboyant glam rock of David Bowie and Freddie Mercury . The influence of pop artist Andy Warhol and her roots in musical theater further add layers to her creative expression. Drawing comparisons to Madonna, Gaga aspires to revolutionize pop music just as her idol did. Heavy metal also finds a place in her musical lexicon, with bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Marilyn Manson leaving an indelible mark.

Gaga’s inspiration is not limited to music and fashion. Her fashion style combines innovation and boldness, and she draws inspiration from various sources, such as Leigh Bowery, Isabella Blow, Cher, and Alexander McQueen. She is known for her towering armadillo shoes, which became famous through her collaboration with McQueen. Donatella Versace is another fashion icon who inspires Gaga, and they share a mutual admiration beyond style. Princess Diana has been one of her role models since childhood and has significantly shaped Gaga’s fashion style.

Gaga’s inspiration is not limited to music and fashion; she also finds it in the spiritual realm. She admires Deepak Chopra, an Indian alternative medicine advocate, and considers him a “true inspiration.” Gaga also quotes Indian leader Osho’s book “Creativity” on Twitter, reflecting her appreciation for creativity, rebellion, and equality. Lady Gaga’s diverse sources of inspiration highlight her commitment to pushing boundaries and embracing creativity in all forms.

Censorship in China

It’s not a commonly known fact, but Lady Gaga encountered censorship challenges that shaped the trajectory of her presence in the People’s Republic of China, and her biography sheds light on how it happened.

In 2011, the Ministry of Culture, acting on behalf of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, banned Lady Gaga, citing her as “vulgar.” This prohibition, however, was lifted in 2014. Despite the resumption, conditions were set for the legal sale of  Artpop  in China. The album’s artwork, featuring Gaga in a nearly nude state, underwent modifications to align with regulatory requirements. Notably, the track “Sexxx Dreams” underwent a title change to “X Dreams” to meet the stipulated criteria.

The year 2016 saw a resurgence of the ban in China after Lady Gaga engaged in a public discussion with the Dalai Lama. This led to her inclusion on a list of perceived hostile foreign forces by the Chinese government. A directive was issued to cease the distribution of her songs on Chinese websites and media outlets. The Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party went a step further, instructing state-controlled media to condemn the meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Subsequently, during the 91st Academy Awards, Gaga’s image was intentionally omitted in Chinese media coverage, foreshadowing a pattern of censorship. Her appearance in  Friends: The Reunion  faced a similar fate, drawing criticism from her Chinese fanbase.

Lady Gaga’s journey through censorship reflects the complex interplay between artistic expression and regulatory scrutiny in the global landscape. These incidents underscore artists’ broader challenges in navigating the delicate balance between creative freedom and regulatory constraints.

LGBT Advocacy

Lady Gaga has emerged not only as a pop sensation but also as a fervent advocate for the rights of the LGBT community. Identifying as a bisexual woman, Gaga has been an unwavering supporter of LGBT rights globally.

Acknowledging the pivotal role played by her gay fans in propelling her early success, she proudly embraces her status as a gay icon. In the initial stages of her career, Gaga faced challenges securing radio airplay but found a supportive audience within the gay community, which she considers a turning point.

Her unwavering commitment to the cause took on various forms. In 2009, Gaga spoke at the National Equality March in Washington, DC, where she emphasized her support for the LGBT rights movement. At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she highlighted the US military’s discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Accompanied by four gay and lesbian former members of the Armed Forces affected by the policy, Gaga used her platform to advocate for its repeal. She urged her fans to join the fight against the discriminatory regulation.

Gaga’s activism extended to Europride in Rome in 2011, where she decried the insufficient state of gay rights in certain European countries. Tragically, her influence was underscored by the mention of her name in the final moments of teenager Jamey Rodemeyer’s life, prompting Gaga to address the issue of anti-gay bullying with then-President Barack Obama .

Her involvement continued in 2016 during a vigil in Los Angeles for the victims of the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando. Gaga passionately read aloud the names of the 49 individuals who lost their lives and later participated in a Human Rights Campaign tribute video. The artist consistently opposed policies perceived as detrimental to the LGBT community, including Donald Trump’s military transgender ban.

In 2019, Gaga criticized Vice President Mike Pence during one of her Enigma shows for his association with a school that turned away LGBTQ individuals, asserting that such actions were not in line with the principles of Christianity. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Gaga delivered a congratulatory speech at WorldPride NYC 2019, reaffirming her commitment to equality and inclusion.

Gaga’s journey serves as a testament to her dedication to advocating for LGBT rights. She uses her platform to challenge discriminatory policies and promote a message of acceptance and love.

In a 2011 Rolling Stone ranking based on record sales and social media metrics, she earned the moniker “Queen of Pop.” Her influence extends beyond music, reaching realms as diverse as fashion, activism, and taxonomy.

Gaga’s controversial penchant has been a strategic tool to draw attention to social issues. Notably, her protest dressing on the red carpet, including the infamous meat dress, made a bold statement against the US military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Frankie Graddon of The Independent acknowledges Gaga’s role in influencing protest dressing, bringing a political edge to the glitz of Hollywood events.

Her meteoric rise in 2009 earned her the “Greatest Pop Star” title by Billboard. The success of her debut album,  The Fame , positioned Gaga as a game-changer in the music industry. She is credited with popularizing synth-pop in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Critics hailed Gaga’s innovative approach to celebrity, treating her fame as an evolving art project. The album  Born This Way  found a place among the 50 best female albums of all time, with Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield noting that it’s hard to imagine a world without Gaga.

Academic recognition came from a 2017 journal published by Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, which identified Gaga’s tracks, including “Bad Romance” and “Poker Face,” as some of the catchiest. NPR acknowledged her impact, naming her the second most influential female artist of the 21st century in 2018, highlighting her significance in the “Internet age.”

Gaga’s influence transcends music, reaching a myriad of artists across genres. From Miley Cyrus to Kanye West , her innovative spirit has inspired a generation of musicians, validating her position as a cultural trailblazer. Even a new genus of ferns, aptly named  Gaga , and several species, including  G. germanotta ,  G. monstraparva , and  Kaikaia gaga , pay homage to her creative legacy.

Beyond taxonomy, Gaga has been commemorated in various ways globally. In Taiwan, July 3 is celebrated as “Lady Gaga Day,” marking her first visit in 2011. In West Hollywood, May 23 has been declared “Born This Way Day” in honor of the album’s tenth anniversary, with a street painting featuring Daniel Quasar’s pride flag version.

Awards and Recognition

Gaga’s mantelpiece boasts thirteen Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Brit Awards, and the prestigious Contemporary Icon Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The National Arts Awards’ Young Artist Award, the Jane Ortner Artist Award, and a National Board of Review Award for Best Actress further underline her multifaceted talents. The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) recognized her as a Fashion Icon, solidifying her impact beyond music.

In 2019, Gaga achieved an unprecedented feat, becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Grammy Award in a single year for her contribution to  A Star Is Born ‘s soundtrack. The 2020 MTV Video Music Awards honored her with the inaugural Tricon Award, celebrating her achievements across three or more entertainment fields.

Billboard, acknowledging Gaga as the Greatest Pop Star in 2009, Woman of the Year in 2015, and a consistent presence on various charts, recognizes her enduring influence. She holds the record for the longest reign on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and her albums  The Fame  and  Born This Way  continue to receive acclaim, with the latter featured in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us. Lady Gaga

Gaga’s global impact extends to her estimated 170 million record sales and chart-topping singles, contributing to her status as one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Her concert tours and residencies have generated over $689.5 million in revenue, earning her the Pollstar Award for Pop Touring Artist of the Decade.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recognizes Gaga as the 18th top digital singles artist in the US, with several Diamond-certified songs, a Digital Diamond Award, and the distinction of being the first female artist with four singles selling at least 10 million copies globally.

Guinness World Records documented Gaga’s social media dominance, naming her the most followed person on Twitter from 2011 to 2013. Forbes consistently featured her on the Celebrity 100 list, and she ranked among the World’s Most Powerful Women. Time magazine recognized her influence, naming her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010 and 2019.

Financially, Gaga’s prowess is undeniable. Forbes estimated her net worth at $275 million in 2016, and she consistently appeared on their highest-earning lists, including Top-Earning Celebs Under 30 and Top-Earning Musicians of the Decade . Gaga’s decade earnings reached a staggering $500 million, securing her place as one of the highest-earning female musicians.

As we celebrate Lady Gaga’s remarkable life story, it is evident that her legacy goes beyond the music industry. Her achievements, which include estimated sales of 170 million records and a net worth of $275 million, highlight her unparalleled influence in the entertainment world. Gaga’s impact on fashion and activism and her ability to reinvent herself seamlessly make her a true cultural phenomenon, confirming her position as a pop star and an enduring symbol of artistic brilliance and empowerment.

Similar Posts:

Taylor swift: biography, success story, singer-songwriter.

• Madonna: Biography, Success Story, the “Queen of Pop”
• The 25 Richest Rappers in the World

Kanye West: Biography, Success Story, American Rapper

• Marilyn Monroe Biography: Success Story of Film Actress and Model

Related posts

Emma watson biography: success story of actress, model, and activist, madonna: biography, success story, the "queen of pop".

Growing Up Gaga

O ne year ago this month, Lady Gaga arrived for an interview in the dark, oak-paneled lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, a massive Spanish-style place in the tourist district of Hollywood that was supposed to make the area chic but has largely failed. “Just Dance,” the lead single off her first album, The Fame, had reached No. 1 in Australia, Sweden, and Canada in early 2008, but in March 2009, she was still an up-and-coming artist in America: a few thousand MySpace plays, a generic website, and a short tour as the opening act for New Kids on the Block. Gaga had a video, though. “My colleagues at radio in those three countries agreed to support her if I made a video,” says Martin Kierszenbaum, the president of A&R at her label, Interscope. The “Just Dance” video, shot a few miles from the Roosevelt, features Gaga shimmying with a disco ball in her hands while her friends drape themselves on a couch nearby—though most of those people were extras, not real friends. She didn’t know many people on the West Coast. “I don’t like Los Angeles,” she told me. “The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.”

Before the meeting, I assumed that someone with a stage name like “Lady” (her given name is Stefani Joanne Germanotta) was going to be a bit standoffish—that’s the strategy employed by most nervous young musicians on the occasion of their first real interview, in any case. But I never thought she was going to actually be Lady Gaga. These days, very few artists play the media like Bob Dylan, or stay in character as Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh did in his early career. In the age of VH1’s Behind the Music, tabloid culture, and reality television, musicians are aware that they should show themselves to journalists in as much mundane detail as they can muster. “But Lady Gaga is my name,” she said, amazed that I would have thought otherwise. “If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.”

Gaga eased into a brown leather couch with as much grace as possible given her outfit, a stiff white jumpsuit with a jacket cut from a Martin Margiela pattern, the enormous shoulder pads stuffed underneath the fabric extending toward her ears. At five-two and 100 pounds, with her hair styled into a mod blonde bob, she looked flush from a strict diet of starvation: “Pop stars should not eat,” she pronounced. She was young, skinny, and blonde, but she had a prominent Italian nose, the kind of nose that rarely survives on a starlet. (This was during Gaga’s “hair-bow” phase—that would be pre-hair-hat and pre-hair-telephone—and when I asked about the bow’s whereabouts, she rested her head on a pillow of her hands and said, “She’s sleeping.”) In the hallway near her table, families of tourists took pictures of one another with cameras, unaware of her presence, and she recoiled dramatically at every flash. “Oh, cameras,” she said, shielding her eyes. “I cannot bear the cameras.”

As we began the conversation, Gaga spoke carefully in a very odd accent—some combination of Madonna as Madge and a robot, an affect enhanced by the fact that she refused to remove her lightly tinted sunglasses over the course of two hours. “What I’ve discovered,” said robo-Gaga, with a photo-ready tilt of her head, “is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth—and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.”

Gaga was very taken with her new “bubble dress” at this point, and we talked about its unreality, the beauty of the imaginary. Everyone wanted that dress, but it wasn’t a dress at all—it was a bunch of plastic balls. “On my tour,” she declared, “I’m going to be in my bubble dress on a piano made of bubbles, singing about love and art and the future. I should like to make one person believe in that moment, and it would be worth every salt of a No. 1 record.” She dropped the accent for a moment now—the real girl, unartificed, was right underneath—and leaned in. “I can have hit records all day, but who fucking cares?” she explained. “A year from now, I could go away, and people might say, ‘Gosh, what ever happened to that girl who never wore pants?’ But how wonderfully memorable 30 years from now, when they say, ‘Do you remember Gaga and her bubbles?’ Because, for a minute, everybody in that room will forget every sad, painful thing in their lives, and they’ll just live in my bubble world.”

One year later, the transformation is complete: With six No. 1 hits in the last year, Lady Gaga is the biggest pop star in the world. By definition, a pop star is manufactured—rock stars weren’t, at least not until well into the seventies, and that may be part of why rock became pop—and in some ways she has benefited from a very traditional star-making model, one of the last purviews of corporate music labels. But success can have a thousand authors. Several different people have claimed credit for discovering Gaga, 24, shaping her, naming her, making her who she is: Rob Fusari, who co-wrote and produced her early songs, sued her two weeks ago for $30 million, claiming among other grievances that he had a contract for 15 percent of her merchandising. And Gaga, of course, takes the credit herself. “I went through a great deal of creative and artistic revelation, learning, and marination to become who I am,” she explains. “Tiny little lie? I wanted to become the artist I am today, and it took years.”

All of them are partly right. But in another sense, she was an accident, a phenomenon that happened in New York in the first decade of a new century.

And what a happening. At a time when you wouldn’t recognize the faces of the people who make most of the music we listen to (who are those guys in Vampire Weekend, again?), Gaga is visually iconic; in an age of Twitter, the remoteness she has cultivated since her first moment in the spotlight has made her an even bigger star. She completely turns the page on the last decade’s era of bimbodom, taking back the limelight from women who made their careers by admitting that they had nothing to say, like Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson. She also closes a strange era in female pop stardom, with rising talents unable to push through to superstardom (Katy Perry, Rihanna), American Idol contestants (Kelly Clarkson), older stars (Gwen, Fergie), tween stars (Miley and posse), and hugely popular musicians who aren’t pop in their hearts, like Taylor Swift (country crossover) and Beyoncé (urban crossover). She’s riveting in any language, with lyrics that compose their own Esperanto—she’s effortlessly global.

Gaga’s presence also introduces the formerly unthinkable idea that Madonna, another voracious Italian girl, may really, truly, finally be on her way out. Her new look is an appropriation of Madonna’s circa “The Girlie Show” and “Blonde Ambition” (the darkened brows, the platinum-blonde hair, the red lips), and her music-video director, Jonas Åkerlund, is a major latter-day collaborator of Madonna’s. But the two are very different: Madonna hasn’t had a sense of humor about herself since the nineties, where Gaga is all fun and play. At her core, she’s a young art-school student, full of optimism and kindness, childlike wonder at the bubble world. Though she may not be bisexual herself—of the many friends of hers interviewed for this article, not one of them recalls her ever having a girlfriend or being sexually interested in any woman offstage—her politics are inclusive, and she wants to promote images of as many sexual combinations as are possible on this Earth. Gaga says she’s a girl who likes boys who look like girls, but she’s also a girl who likes to look like a boy herself—or, rather, a drag queen, a boy pretending to be a girl. There’s little that gives her more pleasure than the persistent rumor that she is a hermaphrodite, an Internet rumor based on scrutinizing a grainy video. That’s not Madonna. Madonna wouldn’t pretend she has a penis.

But that’s the genius of Gaga: her willingness to be a mutant, a cartoon. She’s got an awesome sense of humor, beaming tiny surreal moments across the world for our pleasure every day—like the gigantic bow made of hair she popped on her head last year. “One day, I said to my creative team, ‘Gaultier did bows, let’s do it in a new way,’ ” she says. “We were going back and forth with ideas, and then I said”—snaps finger—“hair-bow.” She giggles. “We all fucking died, we died . It never cost a penny, and it looked so brilliant. It’s just one of those things. I’m very arrogant about it.” Her videos are global epiphenomena, like the Tarantino-flavored “Telephone,” with its lesbian prison themes and Beyoncé guest appearance. “Gaga doesn’t care so much about the technical part, but she’s involved in every creative aspect,” says Åkerlund. “We just allow ourselves to be very stupid with each other, and then you get ideas like sunglasses made of cigarettes.”

Gaga also throws in our face something we’ve known all along but numbly decided to ignore: American celebrities have become very, very boring. (The fact that she has done this at the same time that much of the actual music she makes herself is somewhat boring is another feat.) One of her essential points is that celebrity should be the province of weirdos, like Grace Jones circa Jean-Paul Goude and her pet idol, eighties opera–meets–New Wave cult figure Klaus Nomi, who died of AIDS at 39. To Gaga, our video-game-playing, social-networking, cell-phone-obsessed culture has made all of us smaller, more normal, less interesting—and, except for odd lightning strikes like the Jersey Shore cast and Conan O’Brien’s anointment of one Twitter fan—famous to no one, after all. “Kudos on MySpace? What is that?” she says, spitting out the words. “That’s not emblematic about what I’m talking about. I’m talking about creating a genuine, memorable space for yourself in the world.”

The story of Gaga is a story of being young in New York City. Stefani Germanotta grew up in a duplex on the Upper West Side, on one of the eclectic blocks between Columbus and Amsterdam in the West Seventies that are a mix of prewar brownstones, tenements, and modern condos. Her father ran a company that installed Wi-Fi in hotels, and her mother worked for a time as a V.P. at Verizon. They sent Gaga and her younger sister, Natali, 18, to Sacred Heart, a small Catholic girls’ school up the street from the Guggenheim. “Sacred Heart may have been prestigious, but there were lots of different kinds of girls,” says Gaga. “Some had extreme wealth, others were on welfare and scholarship, and some were in the middle, which was my family. All our money went into education and the house.” Her classmates say that her family was tight-knit. “When John Kerry was running for president, Stefani supported him and her father didn’t, so she joked about that,” says Daniela Abatelli, Sacred Heart ’05. Gaga was one of the only students with a job after school, as a waitress at a diner on the Upper West Side. With her early paychecks, she bought a Gucci purse. “I was so excited because all the girls at Sacred Heart always had their fancy purses, and I always had whatever,” she says. “My mom and dad were not buying me a $600 purse.”

Because her parents told her that they had sacrificed for her education, Gaga took school seriously from a young age. One of her favorite childhood memories is playing a piano concert at Sacred Heart at 8. “There was a line of twenty girls sitting in a row in our pretty dresses, and we each got up to play,” she says happily. “I did a really good job. I was quite good.” At 11, she began attending a full day of acting classes on Saturdays. “I remember the first time that I drank out of an imaginary coffee cup,” she says, closing her eyes. “That’s the very first thing they teach you. I can feel the rain, too, when it’s not raining.” Her lids pop open. “I don’t know if this is too much for your magazine, but I can actually mentally give myself an orgasm.” She hisses a little, like one of the deviant vampires in True Blood. “You know, sense memory is quite powerful.”

“Andy Warhol’s books became her bible,” says a friend. “She would highlight them with a pen.”

By eighth grade, she had also realized that acting was a way to meet boys and began auditioning for plays with Sacred Heart’s brother school, Regis High School, on 84th Street, near Park Avenue. She always landed the lead: Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Jealous older girls stuck in the chorus began calling her “the Germ.” “They always talked behind her back, like, ‘Gross, she’s the Germ! She’s dirty!’ ” says a classmate. Gaga has often mentioned that she was an outcast in high school, but other than adolescent shenanigans like these, her friends from this Pudding-like crowd do not share this recollection. “She was always popular,” says Julia Lindenthal, Marymount ’04. “I don’t remember her experiencing any social problems or awkwardness.”

At the time, she had a certain incipient Gaganess: She could be a little overdramatic, spoiled, brassy, but she was also a nice girl (not to say a good girl), recalled by many as kind and generous—a theater chick who was starting to express her own feelings through songwriting. A fan of Pink Floyd and the Beatles, she started a classic-rock cover band and began entering open-mike nights at the Songwriters Hall of Fame on the Upper West Side. She even cut a demo of her love ballads, and her parents gave out copies as favors at her large Sweet 16 party, at the Columbus Club. “Everyone was playing her demo, like, ‘Whoa, she’s going to be a star,’ ” says Justin Rodriguez, Regis ’03. “She was by far the most talented person in high school, but she’d do so many random acts of kindness, like saying, ‘Your singing has gotten so much better, you’re working hard and I’ve noticed.’ She wasn’t a diva at all.”

Like many private-school girls, by 15, Gaga had a fake Delaware I.D. purchased on Macdougal Street. She also started dating a 26-year-old Greek waiter from the restaurant. “That’s part of why I needed a job after school, too,” she says. “My dad wouldn’t give me money to go out on the weekends because he knew I was going downtown and being bad.” Soon, she had her first tattoo: a G clef on her lower back. (“Before I made my first big music video, I decided to turn that tattoo into a huge side piece,” she says. “I just couldn’t face the world with a tramp stamp.”) She was still a good girl at school, even if she got in trouble with the teachers once in a while: not for short kilts but inappropriate shirts. “I was fifteen to twenty pounds heavier than I am now,” says Gaga. “I would wear shirts that were low-cut, and the teachers would tell me I couldn’t wear them, and I’d point to another girl who was wearing the same thing. ‘Well, it looks different on her.’ It wasn’t fair.” She shimmies her shoulders a bit. “At that time, my breasts were much bigger, and firm, and delicious.” (Another high-school nickname: Big Boobs McGee.)

After the World Trade Center was attacked, Gaga cried for days and wore black, in mourning. “As she came down the aisle to get Communion at the special Mass for 9/11, her steps were in this serious cadence,” says a friend. “She used to wear a lot of makeup, but she didn’t have any on. I remember thinking, Wow, she is so over-the-top. ” Gaga also had an odd habit of refusing to let cast members in plays call her by her real name backstage. “If you tried to say ‘Hey, Stefani’ to her, she’d put on the voice of her character, and say, ‘No, I’m Ginger!’ ” says a friend. “It was so bizarre, because we were kids.”

After high school, Gaga moved to an NYU dorm on 11th Street and enrolled in Tisch, but quickly felt that she was further along creatively than some of her classmates. “Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself,” she says. By the second semester of her sophomore year, she told her parents that she wasn’t going back to school—she was going to be a rock star. Her father reportedly agreed to pay her rent for a year on the condition that she reenroll if she was unsuccessful. “I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen,” she says.

Gaga moved into an apartment on the Lower East Side, with a futon for a couch and a Yoko Ono record hung over her bed. In high school, she had blonde highlights and let her curls run wild, but now she dyed her hair black and began to straighten it. She started the Stefani Germanotta Band with some friends from NYU, recording an EP of her Fiona Apple–type ballads at a studio underneath a liquor store in New Jersey. “Stefani had a following of about fifteen to twenty people at each show,” says the guitarist, Calvin Pia. Says her manager at the time, Frankie Fredericks, “We’d kick it, jam, get drunk. She said she wanted to have a record deal by the time she was 21.”

It was a lofty goal. What was missing, almost entirely, was any idea of how to get there. Like Madonna, she had a powerful sexual charisma. But whereas Madonna had seemed to calculate every step, every coupling, every stylistic turn in her quest for stardom, Gaga’s story is partly one of youthful drift, waiting for lightning to strike, for the brilliant accident to happen. Gaga, though, had something Madonna didn’t have: a truly great voice.

Gaga’s year off from school was set to end in March 2006—her father had set a cutoff date of her birthday. A week before, the Stefani Germanotta Band performed at the Cutting Room on the same bill as Wendy Starland, a young singer-songwriter in the mold of Peter Gabriel. Starland had been working on tracks with Rob Fusari, a 38-year-old producer in Parsippany, New Jersey, who was known for his success with R&B hits for Destiny’s Child and Will Smith. He mentioned to Starland that he was interested in locating a female singer to front a band like the Strokes—she didn’t have to be good-looking, or even a great singer, but she had to have something about her you couldn’t take your eyes off. “Stefani’s confidence filled the room,” says Starland. “Her presence is enormous. And fearless. I listened for the pitch, the tone, and timbre of her voice. Was she able to have a huge dynamic range? Was she able to get soft and then belt? And I felt that she was able to do all that while giving out this very powerful energy.”

Gaga erupted in giggles when Starland ran up to her after the performance and told her, “I’m about to change your life.” They rushed outside the club together, and Starland called Fusari on her cell phone. “Rob said, ‘Why are you waking me up?’ I said I found the girl. ‘What? It’s really one in a million. What’s her name?’ Stefani Germanotta. ‘Um, you gotta be kidding me. What does she look like?’ Don’t worry about that. ‘Does she have any good songs?’ No. ‘How is her band?’ Awful.” Starland laughs. “I wasn’t pitching a product. I was pitching the girl.”

When Fusari first met Gaga, he didn’t see the private-school thing and thought she looked like “a Guidette, totally Jersey Shore .” Then she jumped on his piano. “She didn’t have that kind of undersinging character voice of Julian Casablancas, so I dropped the Strokes thing right away,” says Fusari. “I thought she was a female John Lennon, to be totally honest. She was the oddest talent.” Gaga began taking the bus from Port Authority to meet him at his New Jersey studio at 10 a.m., writing grungy songs with Zeppelin or Nirvana riffs on the piano and singing her quirky Jefferson Airplane lyrics over them. “I’m a hippie at heart, and Rob and I got tattoos one day,” she says. “I wanted a tattoo of a peace sign, in memory of John and Yoko. I love that they traveled the world and said ‘Give peace a chance,’ and when asked to elaborate, they replied, ‘No, just give peace a chance.’ They thought the simplicity of that phrasing would change the world. It’s so beautiful.”

The two of them worked on rock songs for four months, but the reaction among their colleagues was negative; they also tried the singer-songwriter route, like Michelle Branch or Avril Lavigne, but those didn’t gel either. “With those kinds of records, people are looking at the source of that music, who it’s coming from,” says Starland. “Those artists are usually classically beautiful, very steady, and more tranquil, in a way.” Stefani agreed that her name was not going to fly: Fusari liked to sing Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” when she arrived at the studio, and she says that she came up with Lady Gaga off that joke. (Success indeed has many authors: Fusari says that he made it up inadvertently in a text message; Starland says it was the product of brainstorming.)

Then, one day, Fusari read an article in the New York Times about folk-pop artist Nelly Furtado, whose career had stalled since her 2000 hit “I’m Like a Bird”: Timbaland, the hot producer of the moment, had remade her as a slinky dance artist. “We weren’t going to get past A&R with a female rock record, and dance is so much easier,” says Fusari. Gaga freaked out—you don’t believe in me, she told him—but, from that day onward, they started working with a drum machine. They also began an affair, which made their artistic collaboration tumultuous. When Fusari didn’t like her hooks, she would get teary-eyed and rant about feeling worthless. But he was rough on her, too. Gaga wasn’t into fashion at this point: She liked leggings and sweatshirts, maybe with a shoulder out. “A couple times, she came to the studio in sweatpants, and I said, ‘Really, Stef?’ ” says Fusari. “ ‘What if I had Clive Davis in here today? I should call the session right now. Prince doesn’t pick up ice cream at the 7-Eleven looking like Chris Rock. You’re an artist now. You can’t turn this on and off.’ ”

The problem was that she didn’t know how to turn it on: Though she wanted to be a star, she didn’t have a clear idea of what a star was, or where the main currents in pop culture were flowing. It was at this point that she began her serious study. Gaga picked up a biography of Prince, started shopping at American Apparel, and became entranced by aughties New Age bible The Secret, according to friends. As a Catholic-school girl, she interpreted Fusari’s remarks as a signal to cut her skirts shorter and make them tighter, until one day they totally disappeared: All that was left were undies, sometimes with tights underneath.

Starland was still part of the picture: She lived near Gaga’s parents’ house, and Gaga would come over, crunching Doritos on the couch while watching Sex and the City. But when she tried to formalize her role in Gaga’s life with a lawyer, she ran aground. “I got a call from my lawyer, who said that Stefani was going to give me a very generous Christmas gift,” she says. One evening, she went over to the Germanottas’ duplex, where Gaga’s family, including her sister and grandmother, were celebrating, alongside a new little dog that Gaga liked to put booties on for fun. In the living room, Gaga presented her with an enormous Chanel box, revealing a black quilted purse with a gold chain. This might be a Mean Girls moment, where Gaga sticks it to an early collaborator, but in her naïve way, Gaga thought she was giving Starland something of great worth: the kind of purse she wanted so badly when she was young.

Bursting with confidence, Gaga was ready to be transformed. The dance-music scene that she’d fallen into turned out to be a perfect fit for her highly sexualized Catholic-school energy—she was a performer, rather than purely a singer. But the business into which she was launching herself was more difficult than ever. There are only four major labels these days; EMI is teetering on the edge, and if it misses its debt payments in June, Citigroup will own a record label. By 2006, labels were asking artists for a “360 deal”: Instead of financing an artist’s recording and then owning the masters, they wanted to share in the rights that traditionally belonged to the artist, like merchandise, live revenue, and endorsement fees. They were wary of any artist without a proven Internet following—the bet was on MySpace stars like Paramore or Panic at the Disco!—and there was Gaga, trying to go through the front door.

But she had a good track. “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” a song about her friends from NYU asking their dads for money, drew prospective managers to a showcase downtown—everyone had to see her live because otherwise they didn’t get it. She was also invited to Island Def Jam, near Times Square. L. A. Reid walked into the room while she was playing piano and started drumming to the beat on a table. “L.A. told me I was a star,” says Gaga. She signed a deal with Island Def Jam for $850,000, according to a member of her camp, but after she produced the tracks, the line went dead. Three dinners were scheduled with Reid, but he canceled on each. Finally, Gaga got a call from her A&R rep at Island Def Jam: He had played a track in a meeting, and after a couple minutes Reid made a slitting motion across his throat. (Island Def Jam did not respond to requests for comment). She was off the label.

Gaga was devastated. “She couldn’t even talk when she told me because she was crying so hard,” says Fusari. Unlike most struggling musicians, she chose to decline part of her advance so that she could walk with her masters (two of her six hits are on this original record). This was the first moment Gaga had experienced real hardship—the first moment in her life she really thought she might fail. “I went back to my apartment on the Lower East Side, and I was so depressed,” she says. “That’s when I started the real devotion to my music and art.”

In contrast to Madonna, who gravitated to the forward edge of downtown and took herself with the utmost seriousness, Gaga, following her own instinct, headed toward a scene that was inclusive and fun but not particularly hip. In 2007, hipsters were listening to creative folk-rock bands out of Brooklyn like Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective; Gaga went for hard rock and downtown art trash. She fell desperately in love with Luc Carl, a 29-year-old drummer and manager of the rock bar St. Jerome’s on Rivington Street. That’s where she met Lady Starlight, an L.E.S. fixture in her thirties—M.A.C makeup artist, D.J., performance artist—who still plays shows for $60 but has a vast knowledge of rock music and style history. Starlight had gone through many incarnations, from mod meets Cabaret to Angela Bowie to leather-studded member of Judas Priest, which is what she was rocking at that moment.

“Starlight and I bonded instantly over her love of heavy metal and my love of boys that listen to heavy metal,” says Gaga. “In those days, I’d wake up at noon in my apartment with my boyfriend and his loud Nikki Sixx hair, jeans on the floor, his stinky sneakers. He’d have his T-shirt on, no boxers. Then he would go do the books at St. Jerome’s. I’d spin vinyl of David Bowie and New York Dolls in my kitchen, then write music with Lady Starlight. Eventually, I’d hear a honk outside my window: his old green Camino with a black hood. I’d run down the stairs yelling, ‘Baby, baby, rev the engine,’ and we’d drive over the Brooklyn Bridge, dress up, meet friends, play more music.” She leans forward. “The Lower East Side has an arrogance, a stench. We walk and talk and live and breathe who we are with such an incredible stench that eventually the stench becomes a reality. Our vanity is a positive thing. It’s made me the woman I am today.”

“I’m out of here. I’m going to get a new nose, I’m moving to L.A., and I’m going to be huge.”

Gaga started performing her songs with Starlight at small venues, and go-go dancing under a red lightbulb at Pianos—she’d wear a bikini and Luc Carl’s fingerless black gloves, too big for her small hands. Dancing, diet pills, and one real meal a day was the way she finally lost weight, according to a friend. “I was naked on a bar with money hanging out of my tits and ass,” she says. (Gaga has been very open about having taken cocaine during this period, but none of her friends from this time recalls any drug use; they say that she told them she only used cocaine when she was alone.) She and Starlight began opening for the glam-rockers Semi Precious Weapons; they looked like hair-metal groupies, running around the stage spraying Aqua Net on fire. “Gaga and I used to go shopping together, too,” says Justin Tranter, lead singer of SPW. “Any sex store where 99 percent of the store was made up of DVDs and sex toys and 1 percent was actual clothing was our favorite place to shop. Her mom came to my loft once to pick up one Lucite pump that she left at the show the night before.”

Gaga was enjoying herself, and, as usual, she spread her positive energy around. “She tried to make everyone feel good,” says Brendan Sullivan, a.k.a. DJ VH1, who worked with her on some early shows. “I’d go to her apartment with my unpublished novel, and she would tell me that I was the most brilliant writer of my generation, the poet laureate of the Lower East Side. No one else was doing that for me.” She wasn’t talking much to Fusari—the romance was over—but he caught a show with Starlight and was appalled. “It was Rocky Horror meets eighties band, and I didn’t get it at all,” he says. “I told Stefani that I could get her another D.J., but she was like, ‘I’m good.’ ”

But Fusari inserted himself back into the picture, in the spring of 2007, when he heard that his friend Vincent Herbert, a “hustler with a capital H, ” had landed a deal with Interscope to sign new artists. Within a couple days, Herbert had them on a plane to Los Angeles to meet Jimmy Iovine, the head of Interscope. Gaga came to the meeting in short shorts, go-go boots, and a cutoff T-shirt, but Iovine didn’t show up; they flew back to New York, then were summoned back two weeks later. Iovine, an executive from Brooklyn who made his name on gangster rap with Dr. Dre and later rode the wave of nineties soft metal, is known for his good ears, and after listening to a few tracks in his office, he stood up and said, “Let’s try this.”

Gaga was worried that the label didn’t think she was pretty enough to be a performer—she was recording tracks with RedOne, a Moroccan-Swedish producer, but they set her up as a songwriter for the Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears (Spears was running around Los Angeles with a shaved head, so this wasn’t a plum assignment). Herbert even spent his own money to send her to Lollapalooza over the summer, and he started to think that her look was wrong—someone in the audience shouted out “Amy Winehouse,” and that made him nervous. “I told her that she needed to dye her hair blonde, and she did it right away,” says Herbert. “God bless that girl, she really does listen.”

On vacation in the Cayman Islands with Luc Carl, Gaga picked a fight, and he told her that he wasn’t sure she was going to make it. “One day, you’re not going to go into a deli without hearing me,” she spat back. Back in New York, she sat down at a table at Beauty Bar with Sullivan, despondent. “I’m getting a nose job,” she said. “I’m going to get a new nose, and I’m moving to L.A., and I’m going to be huge.” He pleaded with her to be reasonable; like a true city kid, Gaga doesn’t even know how to drive. “Whatever,” she said. “I have the money. I just want to start fresh.”

Sullivan told her about Warhol’s Before and After I painting of two noses, before and after rhinoplasty, with a word that looks like RAPED at the top. She went up to the Met one afternoon and stood in front of it. She bought books about Warhol, which helped her make sense of her journey while providing a new vocabulary to talk about her creations. “Andy’s books became her bible,” says Darian Darling, a friend. “She would highlight them with a pen.”

For Warhol, stardom was its own art form, empty imagistic vividness one of the most important forces. The person behind the mask could be as seemingly sweet and ordinary as Stefani Germanotta—and still be huge. Before Warhol, however unusual, she’d been in the general category of rock chick. He freed her to invent herself, like so many before her, expand herself, make herself a spectacle. While writing a club song called “Just Dance” with RedOne, Gaga tried to broaden her surface, remaking her style as a blonde space-age queen, a fabulous chick from the Factory era. The music was global-dance-party music—faster beats, synth sounds, with an ethos that made sense to her hippie heart. “Gaga and I believe that the world needs this music, that it is a way to unite,” says RedOne. It wasn’t the kind of music America was listening to at the moment, but she could be broken overseas and America might follow.

Suddenly, the clouds parted. One of Interscope’s big artists, Akon, an R&B singer from Senegal with a massive global following, heard the track and lost his mind about it. Iovine pushed the button. She started working seriously with a choreographer: “I heard that this was the new Madonna, so I was like, ‘Okay, let’s hit it, pumpkin,’ ” says Laurie Ann Gibson. She recorded at the home studio of Kierszenbaum, the company’s A&R head, as well. “I liked that she was talking about Prince’s arrangements, styling, and presentation,” he says. “Interest in Prince ebbs and flows, and two years ago, it was very, very maverick. Artists were saying ‘Here’s my record and album cover,’ not talking about putting screens on the stage.” She began wearing her crazy disco outfits everywhere. “She was never out of uniform, if you will,” says Kierszenbaum. She also took a personal plunge: The day that she shot the video for “Just Dance” was the same day that she finally left Carl. Her heart may have been broken, but this was her new life. (Friends say that she has not been in love since, and the ritualistic killing of male lovers in her last three videos is related to this breakup.)

The newly liberated Gaga didn’t feel like she needed to express her sexuality in a typically feminine way, either, and she became obsessed with androgyny, with the look of Liza Minnelli. She loved the free expression of drag queens—she wanted to wear the same clothes as those guys, cover herself with glitter, wear a wig. Though she wasn’t from gay club culture, management began sending her to small clubs around the country. She even performed at a party at the Madison nightclub in the West Twenties hosted by Kenny Kenny, for $150. “When I went backstage to say hello, she said, ‘Don’t look at me! I don’t have my makeup on yet.’ ” He laughs. “I was like, ‘Uh, okay.’ I’ve seen Amanda Lepore without her makeup.”

Now, Gaga thought of herself not only as a superstar—she channeled Andy himself. She adopted his round black glasses and his wigs and spouted his wisdom. “It’s as if I’ve been shouting at everyone, and now I’m whispering and everybody’s leaning in to hear me,” she says. “I’ve had to shout for so long because I was only given five minutes, but now I’ve got fifteen. Andy said you only needed fifteen minutes.” She even started her own Factory, or the “Haus of Gaga,” as she likes to call her entourage. There’s Åkerlund; Gibson; her manager, Troy Carter; and the core team of stylist Nicola Formichetti and her primary collaborator Matt Williams, an art-school graduate whom she calls “Dada” (they have dated on and off during the past couple years). In May 2009, after she released “Paparazzi,” a seven-minute video—thrown off the top of her mansion by her boyfriend, she’s reborn as the robot from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis —she became the haute-fashion world’s pet. “Gaga had some archival pieces from Thierry Mugler, but after ‘Paparazzi,’ everything changed,” says a former member of the Haus. “It happened in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, every fashion designer in the world was e-mailing her images.”

Like Warhol at the Factory, when Gaga likes someone, he works; when she’s done with him creatively, the door is closed. When Fusari sued her for $30 million in mid-March, over recording and merchandise fees, she immediately responded through her lawyers, saying that he acted as an unlicensed employment agent in his introduction to Herbert. “I developed an artist to grow with that artist,” says Fusari, his voice pained. She’s changed her cell number, and most of her old friends can’t reach her anymore. “You know, she used to send texts out in New York inviting everyone on the Lower East Side to her shows, and not too many people would come,” says Sullivan. “And after the vocal coach, dieting, exercising, and all the rest, now everyone wants to go. She has gotten annoyed by that: ‘Why didn’t they come before?’ ” He pauses. “You know, once she blew up, and everyone wanted a piece of her, we stopped calling her Gaga. We started calling her Stef again.”

This summer, Gaga will come to the United States with her arena tour, one of the only pop stars who can fill a venue that large today. She spent a lot to get here—her tour has been losing about $3 million, according to music-industry sources, because she refuses to compromise on any aspect of the stage show. “I spent my entire publishing advance on my first tour,” she told me. “I’ve had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year’s worth of rent.” But profits are on their way soon. “Gaga’s camp knows the exact date this summer that she will turn it around and get way into the black,” says a source. With her 360 deal, Lady Gaga doesn’t own as much of Lady Gaga as one would think. Essentially, this is a joint venture among Iovine, Universal Music CEO Doug Morris, and Sony/ATV publishing head Marty Bandier. It’s a good formula for the business: Hot looks and hot singles are the new monster albums.

These days, Gaga doesn’t talk about Warhol much anymore—she’s fully inhabiting the role she created. “She wants to be crazy, to make statements, make art, channel the past, experiment with performance art, try everything,” says David LaChapelle, a collaborator and friend. “In Paris, she took four hours out of four days to visit museums. That’s just not done by a pop star at the beginning of a career—not when you’re in the bubble, when it’s all about you.” She’s still overly dramatic—talking about monsters, or archly trying to presage her fall by covering herself in blood and hanging from a noose at the VMAs. “I feel that if I can show my demise artistically to the public, I can somehow cure my own legend,” she explained recently. She turns down most interview requests, uninterested in combating misperceptions about her work. “Andy said that the critics were right,” she says, with a shrug.

It’s an unlikely rise, and an unlikely name, and a totally unreal image. But what’s reality? “I believe that everyone can do what I’m doing,” says Gaga, spreading her arms wide. “Everyone can access the parts of themselves that are great. I’m just a girl from New York City who decided to do this, after all. Rule the world! What’s life worth living if you don’t rule it?”

101 of Her Most Outrageous Outfits

See Also: The Lady Gaga Look Book

Additional reporting by Jillian Goodman.

Stefani Germanotta in second grade. Her First Communion. Photo: Splash News

Singing at a Sacred Heart School Concert, 2002. Photo: Splash News

In a play at Regis High School, 2002. Photo: Splash News

At her Sacred Heart”Regis prom. Photo: Courtesy of Nik Richie

Playing a gig at the Bitter End with the Stefani Germanotta Band, 2005. Photo: Calvin Pia

With Rob Fusari at his New Jersey recording studio, 2006. Photo: Jayne Digregoria/Courtesy of Rob Fusari

At Pianos on the Lower East Side, 2007. Photo: Tommy Cole

With Justin Tranter from Semi Precious Weapons, backstage at the Knitting Factory, 2007. Photo: Tommy Cole

Performing at the Slipper Room just before moving to Los Angeles. Photo: Veronica Ibarra

Valentine’s Day in the West Village, 2008. Photo: Angus Smythe

Birthday at Score in Miami, 2008. Photo: Nate “Igor” Smith

At the Boom Boom Room, L.A., May 2008. Photo: Jamie James Medina

At Center Stage, Atlanta, April 2009. Photo: Robb D. Cohen/Retna

With Perez Hilton, September 2009. Photo: Jerritt Clark/WireImage

At the launch of V61, 2009. Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Most viewed

• Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control  
• The Case for Marrying an Older Man
• What We Know About the Mommy Vlogger Accused of Child Abuse
• When Your Kid Is the Classroom Problem Child
• Trump vs. Biden Polls: Joe Has Finally Stopped the Bleeding
• Who’s Behind All the ‘Pussy in Bio’ on X?

What is your email?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

A thoroughly modern diva whose theatrical performances, outrageous attire, and anthemic dance-pop songwriting earned both wide acclaim and chart hits.

Read Full Biography

STREAM OR BUY:

Also Known As

Album highlights.

Related Artists

Discography, moods and themes, related articles.

Your GRAZIA newsletter is on its way. Join our VIP Club for exclusive giveaways and members only events. (DW, it's free!)

• Privacy Policy
• Terms and Conditions

Growing Up Gaga: The Whole Story

She wasn’t born this way, but lady gaga always knew she wanted to become a superstar. this is how it happened..

For 19-year-old Stefani Germanotta, a little-known but scarily ambitious New York University dropout turned pop singer desperate to make a name for herself in the hipster club circuit of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, it was a pivotal moment. There she was, ready to sing some of her hot new material in a dingy dive, dressed to the max — a carefully calibrated mix of American Apparel promiscuity and Bride of Frankenstein weirdness. She downed a few drinks. She was ready. But the blasé crowd didn’t seem to care: they never stopped talking, barely mustering a glance at the stage. Enough, she thought. Without missing a beat, she peeled off her clothes, sat back down at the piano in a skimpy bra and panties, and started her set.

Everyone shut up and listened. And they haven’t stopped listening since.

Years later, Stefani, now better known as Lady Gaga—the biggest, wildest, least predictable pop star on the planet—told a reporter that her alter ego sprang to life that night, fully formed. “That’s when I made a real decision about what kind of pop star I wanted to be,” she said. “Because it was a performance-art moment then and there…. Unless you were in the audience in that very spontaneous moment, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like, she took her clothes off, so sex sells, right? But in the context of that moment, in that neighborhood, in front of that audience, I was doing something radical.”

Doing radical stuff has become a big business for Lady Gaga. Meat dresses. Bubble dresses. Meat bikinis. Naked thanksgivings. Flaming pianos. Music videos strewn with corpses, unicorns, and hunky, oiled-up Judases. It all works for her, brilliantly. She’s parlayed an unerring sense for crazy, high concept fashion, insanely catchy dance beats, larger-than-life oddness — and, yes, amazing talent as a singer, songwriter, and musician — into one of the quickest and quirkiest rides to superstardom ever. The numbers have become legendary: 12 straight No. 1 singles on the Billboard dance chart; 32 million twitter followers; more than 23 million albums sold; more than one billion views of her videos on YouTube.

Her fans — little Monsters, as she calls them — are fanatical, and her concerts are huge, meticulously produced extravaganzas. She’s the pop star we needed, the first true superstar of her era. She’s weirdly famous and famously weird. But still, everyone wonders: Who is Lady Gaga, really? And, most intriguing, how on earth did she get that way?

“The goal has never been to be famous,” she says. “My goal has been to be a star.” She succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. Not surprisingly, trying to separate myth from reality in the astonishing tale of Lady Gaga’s meteoric rise from a nice Upper West Side girl into the biggest star in a generation is a bit like trying to separate a vapor trail from a streaking comet.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, born on March 28, 1986, grew up in Manhattan, in a nice, expensive duplex apartment, with loving parents. Her dad, Joseph, was an entrepreneur who made a fortune selling WiFi to hotels. Her early childhood was — dare we say it? — upper-middle-class ordinary. But practically from the time she could talk, one thing set her apart from the other kids in the affluent neighborhood: single-minded, unvarnished ambition.

She started playing classical piano at age four — forced into it first by her mom but soon excelling to the point where her proud parents considered enrolling her in Juilliard. But she opted to take a different road: Catholic school. At age 11, she entered the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a prestigious private school (annual tuition: $35,000; her sister, Natali, six years younger, went there as well). The place had plenty of well-known alumni (including Caroline Kennedy). Still, one student a few years ahead of Stefi made an especially big impression: Paris Hilton, a socialite princess who was already the object of paparazzi fascination.

“She became a bit obsessed with Paris,” says one Gaga friend from her Sacred Heart days. “Stefi was this sweet, slightly pudgy, short, weirdly dressed girl with a perma-tan. And Paris was a blonde goddess. Stefi would watch her, study the way she carried herself.” Years later, Gaga herself admitted: “I am fascinated with the blonde woman as a seductress. There’s a way that these women position themselves in front of the cameras. There’s a real art to fame.”

Stefi was not, as she is quick to point out, one of the cool kids in high school. She was an unabashed theater nerd, taking lead roles in school productions of musicals like Guys and Dolls , squeezing in voice and acting lessons in her spare time.

She played piano in school recitals. She went on auditions for TV and movie roles. She dressed in quirky, mismatched clothes. She was, literally and figuratively, a drama queen. Gaga says she suffered some nasty taunting from her classmates — some of whom called her “the Germ” behind her back — and characterizes the period as one that forever cemented her identification with outsiders. She described it in Rolling Stone as “Being teased for being ugly, having a big nose, being annoying, right? ‘your laugh is funny; you’re weird; why do you always sing; why are you so into theater; why do you do your makeup like that; what’s with your eyebrows…. Why do you have to look like that for school?’ I used to be called a slut. I didn’t even want to go to school sometimes.”

But some of her former classmates remember it differently. “She was really a pretty popular kid,” says her high school pal. “She had a core group of good friends. And everyone knew her as the most talented one in the place.”

Either way, she escaped more and more into her dreams of stardom. She started writing music, emulating the classic rock that her Baby Boomer parents loved — Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, the Beatles — and formed a band with her classmates. She began entering open-mic nights at local bars, always accompanied by one of her doting parents. But she left mom and dad behind to get a taste of the burgeoning, fashion-forward downtown and Manhattan nightlife on weekends. She began dressing more and more provocatively, making the most of her curvy, 5’1″ frame (“she was very big on cleavage,” her friend recalls); she got a fake ID and started sneaking into clubs on the Lower East Side. It was a world of avant-garde artists, musicians, actors, drag queens, freaks, and geeks. It all made a big impression on the little uptown girl, one that would help form her worldview, fashion sense, sense of who she was, and what she wanted to be.

She graduated high school early, then enrolled in New York University’s well-regarded Tisch School of the Arts. Living in a dorm — on her own for the first time, at 17 — she became a regular fixture on the downtown scene. She fit in just fine at school, where she started focusing on the work of convention smashing modern artists like Spencer Tunick (known for photos of large groups of naked folks in public places) and Damien Hirst (famous for art pieces comprising dead sharks and cows, preserved in formaldehyde). She loved how they shocked people, engaging some, enraging others. At the same time, she immersed herself in the work of glam-rock stars like David Bowie, Queen, and Grace Jones. She began envisioning a new type of pop singer who combined performance art, modern music, theatrics, and sex in one intoxicating brew. The pull of stardom grew even stronger.

After a year, she’d had enough — she had to take her shot. Nervously, Stefi approached her dad to tell him she was quitting school to pursue her dream. Joseph surprised her with a counter proposal: he would financially support her for one year as she made a grab for stardom. After that, she was on her own. (In a highly unusual arrangement, she and her dad would reportedly come to sign a contract to split all her future earnings 50/50.) She rented a small walk-up apartment on the Lower East Side and began working full-time on her music, her look— everything. She had a year to make something happen. And the clock was ticking.

It is said failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers. If that’s true, then few have had more fathers than Lady Gaga. She met one of them shortly after moving to the Lower East Side. She’d been touring lousy downtown bars with her lousy lo-fi rock band formed with some friends from NYU, mostly playing to tiny, disinterested crowds. The music was standard Fiona Apple–type singer/songwriter stuff, and the stage act was unmemorable. Still, she had … something. One person who noticed it right away was a singer and burlesque queen named Lady Starlight. She was a decade or so older, and she was at the apex of the downtown art scene. She knew all the players; she knew the hottest clubs and most exclusive parties. “I wanted to bring [Gaga] into my world,” she told the New York Post . She helped Stefi copy her look: heavy makeup; torn fishnets; huge, spiky heels; lots and lots of skin.

Lady Starlight also introduced young Stefi to the world of hipster burlesque dancing. Together, they made the rounds with a wild act that was half performance art, half strip show: dancing on stage in thongs, singing songs about oral sex, and lighting cans of hairspray on fire. Not everyone was a fan. “My parents couldn’t look at me for months,” she said.

She has characterized this as her wild period, one filled with cocaine and a slew of wildly inappropriate relationships with older men. Eventually, she would meet Lüc Carl, a self-fashioned “heavy metal drummer” who was tending the bar at a hipper-than-thou Lower East Side hotspot. A handsome, well-muscled dude prone to leather vests without shirts and a world-class mullet, he was her on-again, off-again boyfriend for years — and became the inspiration for many of her early songs. But two of the relationships from this period that would wind up having the most significant impact on her life and career happened by pure chance. One of her small gigs was seen by Wendy Starland, a singer who was friends with Rob Fusari, the 38-year-old producer known for crafting dance hits for Destiny’s Child and Whitney Houston. Fusari had asked Starland to help him find a singer under 25 to front a band, someone an audience wouldn’t want to take their eyes off of. He was looking for a once-in-a-lifetime star.

Bursting with excitement, Starland called the producer minutes after seeing Stefi onstage.

“Why are you waking me up?” he asked.

“I found the girl,” she replied.

A meeting was set up. Fusari wasn’t bowled over at first. He’s been quoted as saying Stefi looked “totally Jersey Shore…like something out of Goodfellas . She was a little overweight. She looked like she was ready to make us pasta.” But he took a 180-degree turn once he heard her sing and play the piano. Fantastic voice, great keyboard skills, awesome stage presence, so-so songs, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, this was the star he was looking for.

They worked on writing and recording rock songs for months, but they didn’t seem to be gelling; the earnest singer/songwriter mode didn’t fit. Fusari recommended that Stefi switch to a far more popular genre, one that would be far more saleable to record labels: beat-heavy dance music. She fought it at first — after all, she was a rock’ n’ roll chick at heart. But it was a eureka moment, and she never looked back. She merged the flamboyant songcraft of Queen or Bowie with dark, propulsive Eurodisco beats and state-of-the-art production. It may not have been thought-provoking, but it was sexy, accessible, and almost frighteningly catchy.

Eager for a full star makeover, Stefi Germanotta no longer felt like a Stefi Germanotta. She has said that the name Lady Gaga came from a text sent to her from her producer, in which “radio Ga Ga” — one of her favorite Queen songs, and a nickname he had for her — was mistakenly autocorrected to “Lady Gaga.” Wendy Starland says it was the product of marketing discussions. Either way, Stefi ceased to exist. From this point forward, she was Lady Gaga.

The first big breakthrough happened shortly after that. In late 2006, one of her new songs, “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” made its way to Island Def Jam, a label specializing in hip-hop and R&B, and its CEO, L.A. Reid, the guy who helped make Kanye West and Mariah Carey (and later Justin Bieber) into mega successes. Reid wasn’t quite sure what to make of Gaga, but he decided to take a chance. “LA told me I was a star,” Gaga recalled. And he backed up his words with cold, hard cash: reportedly an $850,000 contract, an almost-unheard-of sum for a new artist. Gaga was on her way.

Unfortunately, Lady Gaga’s first taste of real success was short-lived. In the panic-ridden, ever-shrinking post-iTunes music industry, fortunes shift with the wind. Only three months after he signed her to his label, L.A. Reid sat with some of his top execs in an Island Def Jam conference room and listened to a few of Gaga’s newest tracks. According to those present, Reid leaned back and made a slitting motion across his throat.

And just like that, Gaga’s contract was dropped.

She did what most 20-year-old girls would have done: she retreated to her apartment and cried for days. It was a devastating blow, the first time she allowed herself to think that maybe she wouldn’t be a star after all. She ate junk food. She wallowed in depression. She watched monster movies on TV. But then something happened: she got angry. And she became even more laser-focused than ever. As she told New York Magazine years later: “That’s when I started the real devotion to my music and art.” She continued to refine her music, her ever-more-flamboyant stage show, and outfits — even her figure.

Always a bit on the chunky side, Gaga cut down on the pizza and pasta — her twin demons — and joined a gym for the first time. Before long, she lost 15 lbs. and threw herself into a new, critically acclaimed burlesque show with Lady Starlight.

A music-biz dictum says that true talent can’t be contained for long, and that’s certainly true in the story of Lady Gaga. Her producers were still knocking on record-label doors, and in mid-2007, Gaga got a meeting with Jimmy Iovine, the legendary head of Interscope Records. The Brooklyn-born Iovine is famous for having the best ear in the business — one that detected the early potential of stars ranging from U2 to Eminem. Gaga showed up for her first meeting wearing mini shorts, go-go boots, and a tiny cutoff top.

According to one source, the Interscope folks weren’t sure that Gaga was pretty enough to be a headline act. So, at the same time she was recording new songs with one of the label’s top producers, Interscope had her writing tunes for some of their other artists, including Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls.

Meanwhile, the label cranked up the star-development machine. She was set up to play at Lollapalooza, the enormous multi-day outdoor rock festival. But it didn’t go particularly well. Playing one of the smallest stages, her music system was faulty, and the stage bounced every time she moved. Worse still: swarming reporters thought she was Amy Winehouse. With her Goth look and brunette bouffant, Gaga looked like Amy’s evil twin. Interscope executives told her that she should dye her hair platinum blonde. She did. Everything was finally starting to click.

Everything, that is, but Gaga’s love life. As one of Lüc Carl’s buddies explains: “Lüc is a rock’ n’ roll guy, and he really doesn’t like pop. As [Gaga] became more successful, he began to look down on her for choosing to make dance music.” During one of the last of their epic, drama-filled breakups (she has compared their relationship to Sandy and Danny, the main characters from Grease), she told Lüc, “Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f*cking deli without hearing or seeing me.”

After Akon, one of Interscope’s biggest stars heard tracks from Gaga’s soon-to-be-released debut album, the fame, he urged the label to throw all its marketing and development muscle behind the new artist. They hired a top choreographer to work on her dance moves; theatrical experts to help transform her eccentric live shows into flashy, sexy, high-tech masterpieces; and stylists, including the much-sought-after Nicola Formichetti, to elevate and conceptualize her look. “[The Interscope executives said,] “‘You look like a stripper,'” Gaga told New York Magazine . “I said: ‘Is this the only major label on planet Earth that is asking a female pop artist to put more clothes on?'” She moved to Los Angeles to work more closely with her creative team, which she dubbed Haus of Gaga, envisioning it as a modern version of Andy Warhol’s factory.

In late summer 2008, her debut album was released and slowly began making its way up the charts — led by wildly addictive singles like “Just Dance,” about getting trashed in clubs, and “Poker face,” about bisexuality (Gaga says that both songs are based on her own experiences). She crossed the US, touring nonstop: gay clubs, cowboy joints, Top 40 clubs, you name it. Every night, it was a new city.

Then, Interscope gave Gaga her first taste of bigger venues, booking her as the New Kids’ opening act on the Block’s US tour, then the Pussycat Dolls’ tour in Europe. According to sources, she didn’t get along too well with either band. “Here is this chick dressed like a disco alien, wanting to do these elaborate sets with half-naked male dancers and weird props and video screens,” says one person who worked on both tours. “No one knew what to make of her.” More to the point, jealousy reared its ugly head when Gaga began to outdraw the headliners. By the end of the Pussycat Dolls tour, her album was nearing No. 1 on the UK charts, and she was becoming a bona fide sensation. She started taking off in the US as well. Her singles were in heavy rotation; there were Grammy nominations and a series of increasingly outrageous TV appearances. She launched The Fame Ball Tour across America, her first major-venue headlining tour. She created music videos that harked back to the heyday of Michael Jackson. And, most notoriously, she spewed blood in her number at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

Suddenly Gaga was everywhere.

Since then, life has played out like a fever dream that might have been experienced by a young Stefi Germanotta, fantasizing about superstardom in her parents’ uptown duplex, like performing at the NFL’s famed Half-Time Show.

At the end of 2009, there was another album, the Fame Monster, which quickly shot to No. 1, and she kicked off The Monster Ball Tour, a colossal, international-arena show that continued for more than a year and a half and snared $227 million — one of the highest-grossing tours in history. (But not one of the most profitable; a cross between Cirque du Soleil and the seventh circle of Hell, the evolution-themed production cost so much to mount that it lost money). Born This Way, her third album was released in 2011. Not only was it a massive hit, but its title song became a rallying cry for the gay community, one that Gaga has actively supported over the years. Elton John called it “the gayest song ever.”

In 2013, she wrapped up her third huge global tour and released an eagerly anticipated new album, Artpop.

But even in the hermetically sealed, carefully engineered life of Lady Gaga, not everything is fresh-cut roses and frolicking unicorns. There have been troubling recent accounts of continuing battles with weight, including an all-too-apparent 25-lb. gain in 2012. Her record label ordered looser-fitting outfits for the remainder of her tour and told her to work off the poundage. Another health issue: Gaga has tested borderline-positive for Lupus, the disease that killed her aunt at an early age. And there have been legal woes as well, including a $30 million lawsuit from the former producer and songwriting partner Rob Fusari, claiming that he was largely responsible for her success and demanding a bigger chunk of the spoils. The case was eventually settled.

“My ride through the industry was an interesting one because people loved me, but there was a very big raised eyebrow about me,” Gaga told one reporter after the suit. “And as soon as I took off, it was like, ‘I invented her, I made her, I wrote the music.’ When in reality, I am completely self-invented.” Others would disagree with that.

Madonna, especially, seems in virtually every way (except for her self-seriousness and faux Brit accent) to be a prototype for Gaga — the Catholic, Italian-American background; the lower East Side gay-club roots; the pulsing dance tunes; the taboo-breaking videos; the sex; even the ever-morphing costumed personas. Many have noticed the striking similarities between “Born this way,” and Madonna’s 1989 hit “Express Yourself.” Madge, publicly at least, has taken the high road. “When I heard [‘Born This way’] on the radio, I said, ‘That sounds very familiar.’ It feels reductive,” she said on 20/20. “I certainly think she references me a lot in her work…. There’s a lot of ways to look at it. I can’t really be annoyed by it because, obviously, I’ve influenced her.”

Not every pop star is so charitable. Fellow glam-art rocker Grace Jones told UK’s The Guardian , “Well, you know, I’ve seen some things she’s worn that I’ve worn. And that does kind of piss me off.” MIA has said of Gaga: “She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I f–king do! She’s the industry’s last stab at making itself important.” Even Katy Perry called one of her videos “blasphemous.”

Gaga takes it all in stride.

As for Stefi? She has completely ceased to exist. Like Norman Bates at the end of Psycho, the fictional alter ego has overtaken the real person. These days, Gaga is never seen in public without her full stage makeup and freak-chic disco outfits. In her downtime, she obsessively surfs the web, reads stories about herself, or watches her beloved monster movies and Family Guy reruns. But she stays in character, according to those who know her, even in private.

“Lady Gaga is my name,” she has said. “If you know me and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.”

topics: celebrity , Lady Gaga , Trending

• Music Artist

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 409

• Contact info
• 96 wins & 251 nominations total

Lady Gaga: From "Sopranos" Cameo to 'A Star Is Born'

• Patrizia Reggiani

• La Camaleón

• Harley Quinn
• Post-production

• Composer (music by)

• Composer (original music by)

Personal details

• Apple Music
• 5′ 0¾″ (1.54 m)
• March 28 , 1986
• Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
• No Children
• Parents Cynthia Germanotta
• Natali Germanotta (Sibling)
• Other works Album: "The Fame" (Interscope Records). Singles released from the album are: "Just Dance" (2008), "Poker Face" (2008), "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)" (2009), "LoveGame" (2009) and "Paparazzi" (2009).
• 6 Print Biographies
• 2 Portrayals
• 4 Interviews
• 24 Articles
• 26 Pictorials
• 422 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia Gaga's manager, without consulting her, denied permission to "Weird Al" Yankovic, when he asked for permission to parody her song "Born This Way". Gaga only discovered this when one of her close friends showed her the YouTube video of the parody Yankovic had just uploaded to his account, called "Perform This Way", after having gone viral via Twitter. Her manager forced Yankovic to go through (at his own expense) the process of writing, recording, mixing and mastering the song, all while Yankovic was on tour in Australia, prior to denying permission to him. Yankovic felt that if he had to jump through all those hoops, it should still be heard, if not on his album, then online. When Gaga finished watching the video, she personally called Yankovic, and emphatically overruled her manager. Gaga stated that she was never told he had even reached out to her, and would have given him permission on the spot. She also said she was a huge fan of his, she loved what she had heard in the video he had uploaded and felt it was "very empowering" and "a rite of passage" to be parodied by Yankovic, and to release the song on his album as he originally planned. This came just in time, since pulling the parody would have meant delaying Yankovic's album by several weeks or months. Both Gaga and Yankovic agreed to donate proceeds and royalties from the parody to the Human Rights Campaign.
• Quotes [on Donatella Versace ] She's iconic and powerful, yet people throw darts at her. She's definitely provocative.
• Trademarks Often gives empowering speeches during shows to her fans about the importance of self-confidence and 'being whoever you want to be'.
• Mother Monster
• Fame Monster
• Joker: Folie à Deux ( 2024 ) $12,000,000
• How old is Lady Gaga?
• When was Lady Gaga born?
• Where was Lady Gaga born?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Add demo reel with IMDbPro

How much have you seen?

Recently viewed

Lady Gaga Age, Husband, Boyfriend, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Lady Gaga

I’m not smoking anymore but I smoked 40 cigarettes all day long.” [6] Independent jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_24672_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_24672_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top right', relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });  

• Lady Gaga is an American singer, songwriter, businesswoman, and actress. She is known for her unconventional style and visual experimentation. She has twelve “Guinness World Records” to her name, and she is also known as the “Queen of Pop.”
• Gaga attended a private all-girls Roman Catholic school. She described her school life as “very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined but also a bit insecure.” Once, in an interview, she said-

I was mocked for being either too provocative or too eccentric. I didn’t fit in, and I felt like a freak”

Lady Gaga playing piano during her younger years

Lady Gaga during her college days

Lady Gaga (kneeling left) during her days in NYU

• In 2005, during the second semester of her sophomore year, she quit school to focus on her music career. However, her father was not happy with her decision.
• The name “Lady Gaga” was suggested to her by her former boyfriend Robert Fusari. Fusari was texting Gaga about the “Queen” song “Radio Ga Ga,” when a glitch changed it to “Lady Gaga.” As soon as she got the text, she replied-

This is it! Don’t call me Stefani ever again”

• Fusari and Gaga had also created a company named, “Team Lovechild” to promote Gaga’s career. They used to record and produce “electropop tracks” and send it to music industry executives.
• “Def Jam Recordings” responded positively to her tracks, and they signed her into “Def Jam” in September 2006. However, she was dropped from the label three months later. She returned home and started performing at “Neo-Burlesque” shows.

Lady Gaga and Lady Starlight (right) at the 2007 Lollapalooza Music Festival

• In November 2007, she struck a music publishing deal with “Sony/ATV.” She was hired to write songs for “ Britney Spears ,” “New Kids on the Block,” “Fergie,” and “The Pussycat Dolls.” She also used to record “reference vocals” for Akon, who loved her voice, and he helped Gaga sign a joint deal with “KonLive” to make Gaga a franchise player.

Lady Gaga in a “Haus of Gaga” exhibition

The cover art of Lady Gaga’s album- “The Fame”

Lady Gaga at the 2010 Grammys

• In 2010, she was diagnosed with Lupus. However, she was not affected by the symptoms, and she hoped to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Lady Gaga’s album- “Born This Way”

• She wrote the title song of her album “Born This Way” in just ten minutes.

Lady Gaga performing in the “Monster Ball Tour”

• She considers “Born This Way” a lyrical masterpiece including topics like sex, love, religion, money, identity, liberation, drugs, sexuality, individualism, and freedom. The album had been recorded in English, French, Spanish, and German.

Lady Gaga with Cher (right)

Lady Gaga wearing her meat dress

• She calls her fans “Little Monsters,” and her fans call her “Mother Monster.”
• In March 2011, her bracelet store raised $1.5 million to help Japan’s community, when it was hit by a tsunami.
• Once, she had revealed that her song “Poker Face” was about her bisexuality, and her boyfriends were not comfortable with that, and they used to tell her-

I don’t want to have a threesome, I’m happy with just you”

• While speaking at the “2009 The Gender Equality Summit,” she said that it was “the single most important moment” of her career.

Lady Gaga speaking with Oprah about the “Born This Way Foundation”

• She said the best advice she has ever received is- “If you don’t have shadows, you’re not standing in the light.”
• Once, she ordered Pizzas worth $1000 for her fans, who had been waiting all night for her outside a record shop.
• In an interview with the Rolling Stone Magazine, she said-

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say to myself, Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today”

• She used to be bullied in school for her looks. When she was featured on the cover of “Vogue Magazine,” she tweeted –

They used to call me rabbit teeth in school, and now I'm a real live VOGUE BEAUTY QUEEN! http://twitpic.com/3wqogt — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) February 5, 2011

Lady Gaga as “The Countess” in American Horror Story- Hotel

Lady Gaga with Oprah Winfrey

References/Sources: [ + ]

Authors & Events

Recommendations

• New & Noteworthy
• Bestsellers
• Popular Series
• The Must-Read Books of 2023
• Popular Books in Spanish
• Coming Soon
• Literary Fiction
• Mystery & Thriller
• Science Fiction
• Spanish Language Fiction
• Biographies & Memoirs
• Spanish Language Nonfiction
• Dark Star Trilogy
• Ramses the Damned
• Penguin Classics
• Award Winners
• The Parenting Book Guide
• Books to Read Before Bed
• Books for Middle Graders
• Trending Series
• Magic Tree House
• The Last Kids on Earth
• Planet Omar
• Beloved Characters
• The World of Eric Carle
• Llama Llama
• Junie B. Jones
• Peter Rabbit
• Board Books
• Picture Books
• Guided Reading Levels
• Middle Grade
• Activity Books
• Trending This Week
• Top Must-Read Romances
• Page-Turning Series To Start Now
• Books to Cope With Anxiety
• Short Reads
• Anti-Racist Resources
• Staff Picks
• Memoir & Fiction
• Features & Interviews
• Emma Brodie Interview
• James Ellroy Interview
• Nicola Yoon Interview
• Qian Julie Wang Interview
• Deepak Chopra Essay
• How Can I Get Published?
• For Book Clubs
• Reese's Book Club
• Oprah’s Book Club
• happy place " data-category="popular" data-location="header">Guide: Happy Place
• the last white man " data-category="popular" data-location="header">Guide: The Last White Man
• Authors & Events >
• Our Authors
• Michelle Obama
• Zadie Smith
• Emily Henry
• Amor Towles
• Colson Whitehead
• In Their Own Words
• Qian Julie Wang
• Patrick Radden Keefe
• Phoebe Robinson
• Emma Brodie
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Laura Hankin
• Recommendations >
• 21 Books To Help You Learn Something New
• The Books That Inspired "Saltburn"
• Insightful Therapy Books To Read This Year
• Historical Fiction With Female Protagonists
• Best Thrillers of All Time
• Manga and Graphic Novels
• happy place " data-category="recommendations" data-location="header">Start Reading Happy Place
• How to Make Reading a Habit with James Clear
• Why Reading Is Good for Your Health
• 10 Facts About Taylor Swift
• New Releases
• Memoirs Read by the Author
• Our Most Soothing Narrators
• Press Play for Inspiration
• Audiobooks You Just Can't Pause
• Listen With the Whole Family

Look Inside

Lady Gaga: A Little Golden Book Biography

By michael joosten illustrated by laura catrinella, part of little golden book, category: children's nonfiction | children's wellness & social topics | children's picture books.

Jan 02, 2024 | ISBN 9780593647325 | 6-5/8 x 8 --> | 4-8 years | ISBN 9780593647325 --> Buy

Jan 02, 2024 | ISBN 9780593647332 | 4-8 years | ISBN 9780593647332 --> Buy

Buy from Other Retailers:

Jan 02, 2024 | ISBN 9780593647325 | 4-8 years

Jan 02, 2024 | ISBN 9780593647332 | 4-8 years

Buy the Ebook:

• Barnes & Noble
• Books A Million
• Google Play Store

About Lady Gaga: A Little Golden Book Biography

Help your little one dream big with a Little Golden Book biography about pop music icon, actress, and philanthropist Lady Gaga. Little Golden Book biographies are the perfect introduction to nonfiction for young readers—as well as fans of all ages! This Little Golden Book about Lady Gaga–the genre-straddling singer of hits including “Born This Way” and “Shallow” and star of House of Gucci and A Star is Born –is an inspiring read-aloud for young children and their parents who are fans.  Look for more Little Golden Book biographies:  • Willie Nelson  • Beyoncé  • Dolly Parton  • Taylor Swift  • Tony Bennett

Also in Little Golden Book

Also by Michael Joosten

About Michael Joosten

MICHAEL JOOSTEN is a children’s book editor and writer living in New York City. He is the author of the board books My Two Moms and Me, My Two Dads and Me, and Pride 123. Books he has edited include Pride: The Story of Harvey… More about Michael Joosten

Product Details

Category: children’s nonfiction | children’s wellness & social topics | children’s picture books, you may also like.

Indelible Ann

My First Piano Sheet Music

I am Temple Grandin

Want to Be in a Band?

You Can Change the World

Me and the Boss

The Noise Inside Boys

Biography of Lady Gaga

From "Boys Boys Boys" to "Telephone", it's been Lady Gaga all the way since 2008! Let's check out a brief biography of Lady Gaga to find out a little more about this sensational new crown princess of pop.

From "Boys Boys Boys" to "Telephone", it’s been Lady Gaga all the way since 2008! Let’s check out a brief biography of Lady Gaga to find out a little more about this sensational new crown princess of pop.

If you were asked to jot down a list of the most successful new female pop artistes of the decade beginning with the year 2000, such a list would never be complete without mentioning Lady Gaga somewhere among the top three names! The way this lady (pun unintended!) entered the contemporary pop music scene and took it by storm is unbelievably amazing!

All her songs, from the debut number Boys Boys Boys to the latest hit singles Telephone , Alejandro and Born This Way , have something outrageously attention-grabbing about them – is it the burlesquely-outfitted-with-loud-makeup persona in her music videos or is it the rebellious lyrics and powerful voice? Perhaps it is all of this plus more, bundled into a high-voltage package of music and entertainment! Let’s check out a brief biography of Lady Gaga to get to know this maverick pop entertainer a little closely.

Birth and Early Life

Lady Gaga was born on 28th March, 1986, in New York City. She belongs to Italian American descent. Her father, Joseph Germanotta, is an Internet entrepreneur and her mother, Cynthia was a telecommunications executive. Lady Gaga attended a Roman Catholic school, situated on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, since she was eleven years old till she turned seventeen, when she got into the prestigious Tisch School of Arts at the New York University.

She was extremely enthusiastic about acting and took active part in cultural, and entertainment programs that involved singing and music. Friends and acquaintances from her school time describe her as being a good student with a strong penchant for singing. She is left-handed and a natural brunette (she bleached her hair blonde to escape speculations on her resemblance to Amy Winehouse!).

Real Name and History Behind Stage Name

Lady Gaga’s real name, the name that is there on her birth certificate, is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Her stage name, Lady Gaga was given to her by music producer Rob Fusari, who used to start singing Radio Gaga song by Queen (which young Stefani was very fond of) whenever she entered the studio as a way of greeting her. One day when Rob was texting Stefani, he typed the words Radio Gaga on his cell phone screen and the device ran an auto correct, changing radio into lady . That sealed it and Lady Gaga was born! This is one of the most interesting facts of this Lady Gaga biography!

Early Career

Lady Gaga ventured upon her musical career at the age of nineteen when she signed her first contract with Def Jam Recordings. However, she was dropped after three months of signing the contract. Next, she got introduced to RedOne, by the company which managed both her and RedOne’s account. Boys, Boys, Boys was her first song with RedOne and she took inspiration for this song from Motley Crew’s hit number Girls, Girls, Girls .

Following her stint with RedOne, she also worked with hip-hop artist Grandmaster Melle Mel and started a band which she named the Stefani Germanotta Band . The band members consisted of her friends from the New York University. During this phase, Lady Gaga reportedly began experimenting with illegal narcotics and worked part-time as a Neo Burlesque performer besides recording with her band. She cites John Lennon, Madonna and Michael Jackson among others as her idols and inspirations.

Recognition and Rise to Fame

During her initial days at Interscope , who signed her shortly after she graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, her singing talent was discovered by Akon who signed her for his recording label, the Kon Live Distribution. Lady Gaga is gifted with a contralto vocal range which is the reason behind her signature deep singing voice and powerful renditions.

Her debut album, Fame , was released in the year 2008 which met with astounding success and rave reviews from critics all over the world! It topped various international charts and sold more than twelve million copies globally! A deluxe edition of the Fame , The Fame Monster , followed in November 2009. Various versions of different singles from these albums became runaway hits and broke all previous records in a very short time! Prominent among these hit singles are Bad Romance , Telephone and Alejandro which catapulted her among the top contenders for the most famous singers and successful musical entertainers of the decade.

The biography of Lady Gaga is a testimony to fame and success that follows hard work and dedication towards breathing life into one’s passion! What this lady is today is due to her years of hard work and stoic determination to excel at what she considered to be the love of her life – singing and music! Besides her immense vocal talents, the thing that sets her apart from her contemporaries the most is her rebellious attitude and her open disregard for conformation, which is prominently expressed in her videos, lyrics and her fashion sense! A refreshing change from the conventional divas, wouldn’t you agree?

Like it? Share it!

Get Updates Right to Your Inbox

Further insights.

Privacy Overview