As everyone knows, no one — NO ONE — is a better interviewer than Howard Stern. So when I heard that Lady Gaga was going to be a guest on his show today, I perked up, thinking that finally someone would ask some of the unfiltered questions I, and many others, would like to ask her. And you know what? It was pretty great and lived up to all expectations — she even broke down into tears when High Pitch Mike came in and said that her music changed his life.
Gaga spent a whopping 90 minutes talking to Stern — she even performed a song for him — and opened up about money, her sex life and her past drug use.
“I really don’t give a f— about money at all,” Gaga said when Stern tried to get the singer to dish on how much money her album sales and tours have grossed. In fact, she said she still lives in a tiny Brooklyn apartment and has only bought two things with her newfound riches: heart surgery and a car for her dad. “The Monster Ball was really expensive and the next show will be really expensive and I will pay for it,” she said of the 2012 extravaganza that she’s planning.
There was, however, one topic even the famously prying Stern couldn’t goad Gaga could into talking about: her love life.
“What boyfriend? … Who’s Jean Luc?” she joked when Stern asked about what her closest friends call her offstage. (Even her parents call her Gaga at this point, she said, especially when they’re mad at her.) “It’s hard to find a boyfriend who doesn’t mind a good tuck,” she added, throwing more fuel on the fire of the absurdly tenacious Internet rumors about her gender.
“My first love is music,” she explained, though when Stern asked whether she had been intimate with anyone recently, she laughed, “I got laid last night … the guys who are here are my best friends in the whole world. You’re talking about Luc Carl; he’s been my best friend since I was 19.”
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One of the stories Stern was predictably fascinated with was the fact that Gaga’s first piano teacher was a stripper who danced at one of the radio host’s favorite New York gentleman’s clubs, Scores, leading him to wonder if he’d ever gotten a lap dance from Gaga’s instructor.
Back in the day, in fact, before she was famous, Gaga said she used to dance on fire escapes and pretend she was a star, an image she re-created for her “The Edge of Glory” video. But those pre-fame days were also difficult, as she toiled at waitressing jobs and turned to drugs when she felt lonely, something she now really regrets. “To any little sweethearts that are listening … don’t touch [cocaine], it’s the devil.”
Someone posted the entire audio of the interview onto YouTube in six parts. They are below, and well worth the listen if you have the time. One of the more interesting interviews I’ve heard in some time, in fact…
(Pic via HowardStern.com)
