Lady Gaga Went Bankrupt To Entertain Her Fans (Or So She Says)

The Financial Times has a long interview with Lady Gaga conducted by British actor/author Stephen Fry which the paper will publish over the weekend. We were given a little sneak peek of what Gaga said to Fry during the exchange, and she makes some insane claims, including that she went bankrupt funding her Monster Ball tour.

Here is my new favourite Lady Gaga quote in which she talks about what she’s done with all her new-found riches:

The only big things I’ve purchased are my dad’s heart valve and a Rolls Royce for my parents, for their anniversary. And that was only because my dad had a Lady Gaga licence plate on our old car and it was making me crazy because he was getting followed everywhere, so I bought him a new car. Other than that, I put everything in the show and I actually went bankrupt after the first extension of the Monster Ball.

Let’s break this down. First of all, it’s very sweet she bought her father a heart valve because you want to keep your parents healthy, naturally. But the Rolls Royce story is pretty nuts. She didn’t want her name on her dad’s junky jalopy so she bought him a Rolls Royce so her name would look good? Again, it’s sweet to do nice things for your parents, but you do those things because they gave you life and paid for your private school and raised you right, not so your name is associated with a fancy car.

And we do know she’s spent her money on a couple other items along the way. There was a house on Martha’s Vineyard and a piece of a restaurant on the Upper West Side that has since closed. So she’s bought at least a few other things.

As for the bankruptcy story, well, that seems a little far-fetched. She might have laid down some coin to make her show—which has always been considered a first-rate extravaganza—but she’s also making a ton of money for doing it all around the world. It’s not a bankruptcy, it’s an investment. Don’t try to make yourself into a martyr for your art, Gaga.

Speaking of playing the martyr, she says, again, that the media has gotten the Gaga/Madonna comparison all wrong:

In fact, you know, it does not annoy me at all. Do you know what does annoy me? When journalists try to make it look like it annoys me. Because I genuinely love her so much. I think she is so amazing. She could never be replicated and, yes, I’m Italian, I’m from New York, and not for nothing, it’s not my fault that I kind of look like her, right? So, look, if anything it’s more annoying to me that people would insinuate that I don’t like to be compared to her.

At least this time she didn’t call it “retarded”.

You can check out the full interview this weekend at FT.com/gaga.

[Image of Gaga with Stephen Fry via Financial Times]