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Lady Gaga is a creation, but an authentic one
‘Intriguingly odd character’ lighting up pop charts in her own unique way
 Chris Pizzello / AP file When asked how she managed to not only get, but also retain that kind of self-confidence in an industry that feeds on the insecurity of artists, Lady Gaga says simply: “Because that’s your fame. That’s where your fame lives. ... my luminosity.” |
Interviews, performances |
 Obama pays tribute to Kennedy honorees Dec. 6: Before being honored at a special gala at the Kennedy Center, five of the nation's best in entertainment and the arts were lauded by President Barack Obama. NBC's Lester Holt reports. |
NEW YORK - Lady Gaga doesn’t get why some people don’t get her.
“I am so often puzzled (by journalists). Sometimes they go, ‘So what’s this all about? ... What do you look like when you go home? Do you dress like this all the time?’ It’s rude! It’s not nice,” the “Poker Face” singer laments.
The questions may not be polite, but they are understandable for a woman who arrives for a low-key breakfast interview at a nearly empty hotel restaurant sporting a face full of makeup, two pairs of false eyelashes, a sheer outfit strategically cut to showcase her silk bra, platform pumps and her now-signature hair bow.
It’s hard to imagine that she can keep up this act when the spotlight fades away.
But that’s the kind of thinking the singer is trying to dispel. She may have been born Stefani Germanotta, but Lady Gaga insists this is no Sasha Fierce act.
“My realization of Gaga was five years ago, but Gaga’s always been who I am,” says the 23-year-old, in a soft, girlish voice.
“I don’t appreciate when people call me Stefani, because if they don’t know me, I feel like it’s their way of acting like they do ... they’re completely ignoring my creative existence,” she says, before adding coyly: “(Lady Gaga) is who I am. Me and my hair bow, we go to bed together. She sleeps where I sleep.”
It’s that kind of pop philosophy that has helped to make Gaga’s music the latest sensation, and a confounding one at that. While she’s surpassed the platinum mark with her debut CD, “The Fame,” thanks to the throbbing disco beats of songs like “Poker Face” and “Just Dance,” she has captured the imagination of millions — and left an equal number scratching their heads — with her futuristic outfits, outrageous Gaga-isms (most recent: a suggestion of a foursome with the wholesome Jonas Brothers), and her eye-popping live shows, which are as much art as music performances (she starts a tour with the equally provocative Kanye West in October).
‘Intriguingly odd character’
“She offers a degree of mystery that has been pretty rare among pop stars over the past few years,” says Brian Hiatt, a Rolling Stone editor who interviewed the star for the cover of the magazine.
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And Gaga is perfectly comfortable with being music’s peculiar “it” girl, a role she has played from grammar school.
“I’m kind of the odd person out in general,” she surmises. “I don’t really like hanging out with celebrities and I don’t fit into that world, as I sort of keep to myself. So in a way, even in the new group of cool kids and the pop music world, I’m still the odd girl, but I’m OK with it; I like being the odd girl now, it’s where I live.”
By now, most Gaga fans know her back story. A piano prodigy, she grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, went to the tony private school the Convent of the Sacred Heart and spent her early teen years singing in cabaret clubs.
She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before leaving to pursue her music recording dreams. She was signed to Def Jam Records and dropped, then got picked up by Interscope Records, which released her best-selling debut CD.
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