First published 2010
Maureen Callahan traces the meteoric rise of Stefani Germanotta, who transformed from a struggling performer in New York's Lower East Side burlesque scene into the global pop phenomenon Lady Gaga in just over a year. Drawing from more than fifty original interviews with friends, employees, rivals, and music industry veterans, Callahan exposes the contradictions at the heart of this cultural force. The book reveals a twenty-four-year-old artist who proclaims "I'm a free bitch!" onstage yet remains isolated and insecure in private, who wanted to be a sensitive singer-songwriter but became an outré performance artist mixing high and low culture. Callahan shows how Gaga claims authenticity while admitting to being a con artist, insists she doesn't care what people think while obsessively reading online commentary about herself, and declares no man can compete with her career while nursing wounds from an ex-boyfriend who called her too ambitious. The biography captures an artist who embodies the contradictions of twenty-first-century stardom.
Genres: biography, music, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: celebrity, rise-to-fame
Setting: New York, Lower East Side
Period: 21st-century
286 pages · Paperback · Heyne