Lady Gaga: ‘My biggest fear? Stay alone

No one likes to be alone. And there is no more isolated work than being a pop star. Ask Lady Gaga.

His conquest of fame in 2009/2010 was something we had never seen before. One of the first pop stars to enjoy the power of the internet, she seemed to live in a permanent flood of photos in tabloids and mentions in gossip blogs.

Lady Gaga had a voracious appetite. She made use of so many different sounds and visuals in the short three -year space that led a critic to write that she was “living in Madonna’s entire career.”

As their fame grew, the headlines were increasingly outlined.

She practiced a satanic ritual in a London hotel! She hid it is hermaphrodite !! She planned to saw her own leg “for pleasure” !!!

In 2010, she attended the MTV Awards delivery ceremony with a fully meat dress. But no one seemed to understand the joke: Gaga introduced himself in the form of food for the tabloids -she was there to be consumed.

On stage she was the subject of worship by her fans, the “little monsters”. But anyone who is not megalomaniacs knows that this type of adulation is a distant illusion.

“I’m alone, Brandon. Every night,” Gaga told her hairdresser in the 2017 documentary, “Gaga: Five Foot Two”. “After everyone touching me all day, talking to me all day, I go out to total silence.”

Now 38 and in a happy relationship with technology entrepreneur Michael Polansky, Lady Gaga recognizes that those years of loneliness scared her.

“I think my biggest fear was to do it alone -to do life alone,” she told BBC. “And I think the best gift was to meet my partner, Michael, and stay in chaos with him.”

The couple has been together since 2020 and revealed their commitment at the Venice Film Festival in Italy last September -when Gaga used his millionaire engagement ring for the first time.

Personally viewed, the alliance is stunning: a pave ring with a huge oval diamond applied to a set of white diamonds, pink and 18 carat gold.

But in the other hand, it is sticking another, smaller and more modest ring with some grass leaves stuck in resin. And this is the really special ring.

“In fact, Michael asked me to marry these grass leaves,” she says.

“A long time ago, we were in the garden and he asked, ‘If, someday, I ask you to marry, how should I do it?’ I simply answered, ‘Just take a garden grass sheet and wrap it on my finger, it will make me very happy.’ “

The gesture was deeply romantic, but marked by sadness. Gaga’s Gaga in Malibu, California, had received the wedding of her close friend, Sonja Durham, who died of cancer shortly after, in 2017.

“It was so much loss, but that happy moment was happening to me,” she recalls about Polansky’s request. “Being a bride at 38 … I was thinking about what had to happen until that moment comes.”

These feelings ended up inspiring a song from their new album, “Mayhem”. It is called – it is clear- “Blade of Grass”. In it, the star tells the story of a “kiss of love in a garden made of thorns” and the promise of love in a dark time.

Gaga calls the song “thanks” to his partner. And the fans may also have a reason to thank him.

“Mayhem” marks Gaga’s return to pop, in full swing, after spending a period concerned with his film career and secondary albums, exploring jazz and American classics.

In an interview with Vogue magazine last year, the singer revealed that her fiancé was responsible for boosting her in this direction. “He said, ‘honey, I love you. You need to make pop music.'” She says.

“In the” Chromatica “tour, I saw in it a flame,” said Polansky. “I wanted to help her keep this flame alive all the time and just start making songs that make her happy.”

‘Most Revolted Song’

With this approach, the album returns to the surprising sound of Gaga’s early hits, such as “Poker Face”, “Just Dance” and “Born This Way”.

In the last single, “Abracadabra”, she even revisit the almost incomprehensible sounds of the song “Bad Romance” (2009). But this time there is a reference to death-she sings “Morte-Ooh-Gaga” instead of the “rome-ma” of the original song.

In the album art, his face is reflected in a broken mirror. In the videos, she faces earlier versions of herself.

There is the overwhelming feeling that Stefani Germanotta, the artist behind Lady Gaga, is examining the personality she created for herself on stage.

All of this comes to mind with a track called “Perfect Celebrity”. The lyrics say, “I became a famous being” -a verse that extracts all his humanity, like the 2010 meat dress.

“This is probably the most angry song I’ve ever written about fame,” she says.

“I had created this public person, in which I was becoming every way – and maintaining the duality that it was really a challenge to know where I start and Lady Gaga ends. That’s kind of knocked me.”

But how did she reconcile the public and private side of her life?

“I think what I really realized is that it is healthier not to have a dividing line and integrate the two things into a single human being,” she says. “The healthiest for me was to know that I am an artist and living an artistic life was my choice.”

“I love to compose songs. I love to make music, rehearsals, choreography, stage production, clothes, lighting and assembly of a show.”

“That’s what it means to be Lady Gaga. It’s the artist behind everything,” she explains.

In previous interviews, the artist told how to dissociate Lady Gaga. She believed for some time that the character was responsible for all her success and that she had not contributed to anything.

“Mayhem “marks the moment when Germanotta claims the property of his music, not only” Lady Gaga “, but other producers and composers in her orbit.

“When I was younger, people were trying to receive credit for my sound or my image, [mas] All my references, all my imagination about what Pop music could be, came from me, “recalls Gaga.

“That’s why I really wanted to revisit my first inspirations, my career and take possession of it as my invention, once and for all.”

From the beginning, it was obvious that Lady Gaga was excited about this new phase.

After performing at the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, she left to the streets of the French capital, playing initial demonstration versions of her new song for fans who gathered outside her hotel.

It was a decision made at that time, but it served to mark another attempt to restore the spontaneity of its early career.

“I did it for almost 20 years, I played my songs for the fans long before they came out,” she says. “After my shows, I used to invite my fans to the dressing rooms, we gathered and I played demonstration recordings for them, to see what they thought of the songs.”

“You can certainly imagine that after 20 years you don’t expect people to appear to listen to your songs and get excited to see you. So I just wanted to share that with them, because I was excited that they were there.”

For me, as an interviewer, this is also a cycle closure moment. I had last interviewed Lady Gaga in 2009, when “Just Dance” reached first place on the UK charts.

At the time, she was euphoric. Gaga talked enthusiastically about his passion for John Lennon. She declared herself “addicted” in English tea and promised to email me an MP3 version of “Blueberry Kisses”, an unlimted song that tells brilliantly, as it is to have sex with breath -smelling smelling coffee with blueberry.

Over the years, I have seen their interviews become more reserved. She wears exorbitant clothes or wears black sunglasses, deliberately putting a barrier between her and journalists.

But Lady Gaga I found in New York, United States, is the same with whom I talked to 16 years ago – comfortable with myself and overflowing with enthusiasm. She states that this naturalness came because she “grew up and lives a full life.”

“Being present for my friends, for my family, meeting my amazing groom -All this made me a complete person and the most important thing is not my personality on stage.”

With definitive air, she points out, “I wanted” Mayhem “to have an end. I wanted chaos to disappear.”

“I walked away from the icon. The album ends with love.

This text was originally published here.