September, 2024
Lady Gaga faced gossip early in her career that she was a man, but never debunked it. The pop star now explains that she did not do so on purpose, to set an example for others going through the same thing.
Lady Gaga looks back on when she was in her early twenties and this gossip was going around. "I was traveling all over the world for tours and promo for my albums and in almost every interview I was asked about it," she says in the podcast What's Next? The Future by Bill Gates. "They asked me, 'There are rumors that you're a man. What do you have to say to that?'"
"I never answered that because I thought about a child being accused of the same thing. How was that supposed to feel like a public figure if I was ashamed of it," the singer explained. "Sometimes correcting a gossip is not the best choice for the good of other people. I was trying to make people think and go against the grain in a different way."
In a 2011 interview with Anderson Cooper, Lady Gaga was asked about the gossip that she was born male or a hermaphrodite. "Maybe I have a penis, would that be so bad? Why on earth would I waste my time making a statement about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don't care and neither do I," she said at the time.
Lady Gaga is currently scoring a big hit with the duet Die With A Smile with Bruno Mars. In early October, she will be seen in theaters in Joker: Folie à Deux. Later that month, the first single from her new album should be released.