Last Saturday, Lady Gaga visited the Brentwood School in Los Angeles for a young women’s conference, which was titled “It’s Our Turn,” as a mystery guest. In doing so, Gaga spoke of her experiences with being bullied and suffering from bulimia as a teenager. However, Gaga doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as Diane Keaton in struggling with bulimia, which makes me skeptical as to whether Gaga was actually bulimic. If you told me that she suffered from, say, exercise bulimia (or anorexia) today, I’d believe it … simply for the simple fact that Gaga lost a significant amount of weight in between her first and second albums. However, I tend to view Gaga as having an (all-seeing) eye towards her self-crafted “Born This Way” image, and perhaps that makes me think that she’s less than sincere when painting a picture of her past. I could be entirely wrong though, so let’s have Gaga’s words speak for themselves:
On Being Bullied: “I started having trouble with girls in middle school. I always knew that I wanted to do something very career oriented, and I always wanted to be a musician. That alone set me apart. I had such strong convictions and I was pretty delusional, in the same way that I am now … in wanting to change the world and end bullying in America and do whatever I can to promote peace around the world. It might sound kind of silly coming from someone in red lipstick with a bunch of jewels on my jacke. But that’s just the way I have always been. Being excluded is painful.
“It wasn’t until my senior year in high school when I finally confronted my main bully. She was always kind of mean to me, but I was always trying to be nice to her. And I said, ‘I am always nice to you. What is your problem with me? Maybe if you just tell me, we can figure this out.’ And she said something like ‘Well, I just don’t know why you’re so serious about music.'”
On Being Bulimic: “I used to throw up all the time in high school. So I’m not that confident. And maybe it’s easier for me to talk about it now because I don’t do it anymore. I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night. I used to come home and say, ‘Dad, why do you always give us this food? I need to be thin.’ And he’d say, ‘Eat your spaghetti.’ It’s really hard, But … you’ve got to talk to somebody about it.”
Weight Is Still A Struggle: “Every video I’m in, every magazine cover, they stretch you’ they make you perfect. It’s not real life. I’m gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off. Because at the end of the day, it’s affecting kids your age. And it’s making girls sick.”
On Bulimia’s Effects: “It made my voice bad, so I had to stop. The acid on your vocal chords — it’s very bad. But for those of you who don’t sing, you maybe don’t have that excuse until it’s too late. It’s very dangerous.”
On Self Esteem: “I’m encouraging you to know what you’re worth. And know that no matter who has more money in class, who has more stuff, who has a country house – nobody is worth more than anybody else.”
[From Huffington Post]
I like that Gaga is admitting to her young, impressionable fans that even her own videos and photoshoots are merely an illusion. The thing about Gaga is that everything is supposedly an illusion, so I have mixed feelings on the stances she’s expressed within this interview. Naturally, I agree that bullying is an excruciating experience for any child or teenager, but it’s also something of of a rite of passage as long as no valid, long-lasting harm is occurring. Learning to get along with a-holes is a part of life, right? Yes, bullying is a problem, and I too used to live in fear of the school bus ride home during middle school, but it seems like a disproportionate amount of celebrities are making an issue of bullying merely to explain their own (adult) behavior away. In Gaga’s case, I fear that she’s using her so-called experiences with bullying to sell records. With that said, it kills me to think of my own child being bullied even though I know it’s probably just a matter of time before it’s time to deal with that matter.
In other Gaga news, she’s unleashed her try-hard male alter ego, Jo Calderone, once again (photos here) for the most recent installment of the “You and I” fashion series. One of the photos features Gaga’s (mostly SFW) taped-up boobs. Presumably, that’s a pointed joke towards those hermaphrodite rumors from a few years back because — let’s face it — Gaga doesn’t have anything new to show us.
Gaga in B/W outfit at Tokyo Narita International Airport on 12/23/11; Gaga in gold outfit departing for NYE 2012 Performance in Times Square on 12/31; Photos courtesy of WENN.
Every single word about her youth, upbringing and early career is a lie.
She is fake. The is a lot photos in the internet when she was in high school and she doesn’t look unhappy or bad. I don’t know why she trys to create that story how poor and unhappy she was as a teen. For gods sake she was raised in pretty wealthy middle class family in NY.
Well, having been bulimic myself I won’t judge her; she does seem a bit vague about it but it could be that she does not want to get into details,I guess.
About her being happy in pictures…again, don’t want to judge, but I was a skinny, miserable, insufferable bitch in that horrible period and it completely showed. She could have been better at playing smiley and pretty; it came sooo difficult to me, though.
I had bulimic tendencies in high school and would binge eat then vomit it all up, or make myself puke if I felt too full after a meal. I’ve never told anyone, and nobody would have guessed because I was a very happy and healthy looking teenager. I’m also from a very emotionally and financially secure family, and was never really teased but was still very unhappy and insecure. It’s hard not to be in this world obsessed with perfection.
I’m not a megafan or anything, and hated her last album, but I think people are being unfair. Everyone has their demons. She might be exaggerating them to appeal to her “misfit” fans but that doesn’t mean she is making them up. And even if she is lying, it still helps a lot of people to realize they’re not alone in their struggles. She has such a huge following for a reason: she unites people who previously felt alone (and on top of that has a killer voice).
What a liar. It’s been proven that she was never bullied. Her old class mates have come out and said that she was never bullied, she was the rich, popular girl. Ugh. Can’t stand liars. That she keeps saying this is very insulting to people who were ACTUALLY bullied and had to live through that. And why is she acting like she’s the only one who’s ever wanted a career. She needs to get over herself, this schtick is getting old. That said, I appreciate her afforts against bullying and for gay rights.
Also, when you’re bullied you’re lacking confidence (it’s basically non-existent), you don’t just go up to your ‘main bully’ and tell them to talk it out with you. She’s also said that she was dumped in trash cans if that had happened then there would be fear of violence too. She would have never gone up to that person.
That’s not true.. Sure being bullied might result in lacking confidence but when I was bullied in grade 7-9 I “fought back” alot of the time and that just made them hate me more and treat me even worse.
According to you people who are bullied can’t confront the people who are doing it but both me and Gaga (if she’s being truthful) prove that you’re wrong.
I also asked my main bully why she was so angry with me and she told me “well, you stare at everyone all the time”… And that was her explanation for 3 years of bullying and harassing me.
She has this need to be like her suffering little monsters and exaggerate her history.
I saw her in concert. She was so hepped up on something, a line of coke, Adderall. I don’t know. But every woman it seems like takes Adderall now to stay thin and have energy. I have a coworker on it and she loves the energy and being thin.
She has been on tour three years. You are tired. She was on something.
How this woman can make a plea to “end the diet wars” when she clearly has pharmaceutical help to stay thin is beyond me. This is not her natural build and she is clearly abusing something in order to maintain her figure. How can she tell us to love and accept our bodies just the way they are when, clearly, she cannot.
Plus, when she is on tour she is dancing a lot. Off tour I saw her put on weight at first in her first appearance after time off. I was kind of shocked how thick her legs were. She was heavier in the beginning of her very first tour. She isn’t naturally thin.
Because she is a hypocritical pop star. Trying to sell the image. I don’t believe she was bullied. We’ve seen pics and heard from school mates. She is obviously done something drastic to get her body as thin as it is now, and yet she wants to preach to us about self-acceptance. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be on Adderral all the time. Or wanting to be around someone on it. I had a friend who took it for dieting and she was a nightmare! Constantly going, tight as a spring. She’s freak out at the drop of a hat.
I really wish she would stop with the hooved shoes. It is tired and ugly. She obviously shops at the Cracken’s bra shop.
Agreed. I think this is all fluff and her double standard about looking “good” is BS. This is more manufactured PR like her manufactured career. Her star is falling, I hope she’s got a clear view of it.
I admit, I do not totally understand the bullying a lot of people have to live with. I feel very badly for those kids who don’t have support of family and friends which scar them as adults. When I was bullied from grade school to HS, my first reaction was to stand up for my short self, even when it was I, who solely got punished. I fought a lot of fights for my friends too. I just couldn’t stand to let anyone, big or small, good friend or fair weather, get harassed and not understand they will be met with opposite and equal reaction.
With all of that long behind me, I speak to my children about how important it is to not be an arsehat to other people. It isn’t worth the effort wasted and end up getting your ass beat coming home one day. I don’t tell them I was bullied. I don’t tell them I fought a lot either. I don’t want to sound like I’m justifying my reaction to those people. It doesn’t matter if it happened to me or not, It’s still just plain, wrong. Gaga just wants more attention, not attention to the cause.
People use Adderall to stay thin? I have to take it for my ADD.. Didnt have an idea it worked for that..
I feel like celebrities having stories about being bullied is the latest trend. But it’s also a slap in the face to kids who are actually being relentlessly bullied. And the whole “it gets better” campaign in Hollywood is crap coming from a place where you have to look a certain way to get a job or be loved. I’m not buying it from Gaga, either.
I agree, it’s the new “aren’t I relatable?” tactic. I’m sure there are a few who were legitimately bullied, but everyone gets picked on for something at some point, and I think that’s what the majority of celebs are talking about.
She has a very manufactured, carefully crafted image. I have little patience for that anymore.
Agreed. Hollywood is an industry built on bullying. Hypocrites as always.
There’s no feeling behind her words. Being bulimic is not about “throwing up a lot”.
It has little to do with confidence either.
and yes, I still struggle with it, and she has not. It’s a pull, an urge, for control, not confidence.
Fail.
edit: boys too, Gaga. Don’t forget boys suffer from eating disorders as well. Big FAIL.
In the white and black dress pics, it looks like she has a small set of implants.
No. Her boobs hang. They are real.
So sick of her. Was a huge fan of her music on the first album but I got so sick of the antics. But what really soured me on her was when she said something like she imagined Whitney Houston singing born this way as she wrote it. Really GaGa??? Cause it sounds like Madonna! She is delusional. Go away GaGa. At least for a little while. Please?
She doesn’t have a sincere bone in her body. She is manufactured. Made in somebody’s basement.
i also think a lot of celebs make those bully stories up to help their image and “poor me” “im soo like you”.
what i also dont get is her talking about photoshopped covers.
why not get some of the big name women out there together and have contracts that say “no photoshop on my pictures”. if enough of the big names do it no magazine could afford to ignore them.
why dont they do something like that? (it would also help their image and they could cash in)
“Stop diets, do drugs !” Yeah very helpful Gaga.
If she would just STOP talking about it all the damn time she would maybe gain a little of her credibility back. You can still inspire people without LYING, I mean damn. I’m a HUGE fan and LOVE to go to her concerts but all of the chatter gets SOOO f-ing tired.
Her bully told her that the whole reason she did so was because she didn’t understand why she was so into music? I call bullshit.
Yes- I was thinking the same thing. It’s very egotistical- it’s the whole ‘she didn’t like me because she was jealous’ schtick. It makes me think the entire interaction was made up or she’s re-imagined it in her mind.
Damn, she is full of it. I’m actually a bit surprised that in the story where she confronts her bully the answer wasn’t:
“Because you’re just so awesome and talented and pretty and I’m, like, totally jealous!”
PUH-LEASE.
Also, bitch needs a boob lift.
She does sort of have bulimia cheeks… 😉
Gaga is a talented singer and performer but she makes it impossible to like her. Why is she so pretentious and arrogant? When will she stop w/the ‘woe is me’ crap? It has already been proven by her classmates that she was never bullied but, in fact, was very popular. You can relate and empathize with people w/o lying. I have never been raped, molested, assaulted, etc but I still volunteer at shelters for battered women and children. I don’t need to make up stories about my life to put myself on their level. It is easy to empathize with people when you don’t feel superior to them.
Her tour dates were just announced yesterday or the day before, so she’s ramping up.
Easy way to sell more tickets: appeal to the emo masses that are still in grades 9-12.
@ girl that was exactly what i thought! what terrible bullying “i just dont know why you’re so into music” lame
@ girl that was exactly what i thought! what terrible bullying “i just dont know why you’re so into music” lame
Calling bs on this and side with camille, asli, katie spinner etc.
First, check out the pic from spring 2004 her sacred heart grad class;
THen, there’s the 2005 segment on youtube when she was a guest on MTV’s punked;
Further, I believe her mother was the vp of verizon – she comes from a wealthy family;
Of course she’s manufactured; read her bio on wikipedia; no one has ever asked her where her stage name came from – best answer rob fusari (google him or a marketing focus group);
She has some talent but only by today’s standards – if this were the 60s/70s without vids she’d still be doing the weekend lounge singer gig.
My theory apart from ginning up ticket sales – most of today’s popstars are quite boring – they’ve never kicked around the world, graduated from college, served in the military, owned operated their own businesses, etc.
When you scrape away the hype there really isn’t alot there;
Gaga is hardly cosmpolitan intellectual; she’s actually rather vapid and pedestrian if you carefully read her interviews or watch her on talk shows; I think she comes across as a child trying desperately to be profound; endlessly jabbering about “art” doesn’t make you an artist.
Hence, latching onto anything that will invest her thin persona with gravitas.
She’s not the only one that does this.
Agreed, Jover. You’re absolutely right.
Thank you asli I wish she would concentrate on making better music if she can and stay the hell away from these issues. Don’t ask don’t tell was around before her and yet she acted like she was the first one to oppose it; everything about her is manufactured and I wouldn’t put it past her team to do demographic studies on her fan base and issues that mattered to them; after all, is there any evidence that before she became famous she even paid attention to politics at all? The gay issue just seems fabricated to sell product. Just my take.
I love Gaga’s voice and talent but I don’t believe for a second that she was bullied. She’s very clearly a ‘life of the party’ type of person, not afraid to speak her mind, etc. She also worked so hard to be where she is now that she HAD to have confidence in her talent. Those kinds of people DO NOT get bullied. Gaga is NOT an easy target. If you had said shit to her at school I bet she would have given as good as she got. I love her but I wish celebs would stop with the bullying stories. Being bullied is NOT a joke and it’s not some ‘schtick’ you should use to win fans. It can be soul destroying (I imagine), and probably robs you of a lot of happy childhood memories.
All this coming from a woman who said, “I don’t think pop stars should eat.”
She contradicts herself when she claims to be “born this way”, then says,”Every video I’m in, every magazine cover, they stretch you’ they make you perfect. It’s not real life.
Sounds to me like maybe she had an enemy or two, or people who just didn’t like her, which is NOT the same as a bully.
I don’t think she’s doing this to seem more relatable (although it’s useful this way), I think it’s more that she’s attached to the outdated idea of the ‘struggling artist genius’ whose tough life made them profound and superior, or whatever. She seems to think it’s necessary to have struggled in life to be taken seriously as a genius, but she doesn’t really have that struggle in her background so she lies and exaggerates.
I have to say I am getting sick of the whole anti-bullying thing. EVERYONE is bullied at some point in their childhood. Its what makes us strong and gives us a backbone. More parents need to teach their kids that bullying, if name calling, is done by insecure people and to ignore sticks and stones.
If the bullying is physical then thats a whole different thing & totally unacceptable.
YES!!!
Her whole desire to ‘make bullying illegal’ is so ignorant and would do more harm than good in the long-run, for sure.
I think most people experience something that could be called bullying (bad-mouthing, exclusion) and most people have done some bullying. Hell, I think I was nice in high school and I still bitched about some people and was rude to others on occasion. I am sure Gaga has done these things too. Let not diminish serious bullying by equating it with general High School immaturity.
There are photos of her naked where you can see her lady parts. I cannot unsee…
Anyway, I tend to not read anything from her past because she is proven wrong a million times. Also on her school pictures, you can see a healthy girl in “normal” attire with “normal” people around her. She’s manufactured so everything that comes out her mouth is there to simply assure that the past is being shaped to fit her present image. I loathe her for always trying to attract the “freaks” or people who struggle. It’s abusing a serious issue to gain sympathy and more fans. It’s a false connection.
Yeah, I don’t believe anything she says either. She just seems so vague about her supposed “issues.” I actually take that line she used in her Marry the night video very serious: “It’s like my past is an unfinished painting”–I took it like she was saying she constantly keeps inventing things in her life that actually never happened. At the same time, I don’t think she is being completely truthful when she says that every woman should embrace her body as it is. She clearly embraces the very almost unrealistic thin body-frame and I don’t think she is naturally this skinny, since I used to remember her with a bit of more meat on her bones. So what does that say to her fans? Accept yourself, when I clearly don’t?
I think she’s sincere. I can totally see her getting picked on at school. I buy what she’s sellin’
This came after Adele spoke about her body issues addressing Lagerfeld’s statement about her body. Whatever.
She makes eating disorders sound like vain illnesses. They’re not, the whole “I just want to be thin” thing is just a deflection. This gets me so mad.
No. Nothing about this girl is sincere.
I hate when all these people talk about bullying. You are demeaning the term. We all went through a certain amount. I was an immmigrant kid who didn’t speak english. Yeah, school was alot of fun for me but I don’t consider it bullying to what some people have talked about. I was never beaten up. I cried alot for a few years but I dunno, I got over it. When every bad experience is called bullying then what are we talking about anymore? What would we “ban”? It just becomes meaningless.
I am also an immigrant and know what you mean. I did get picked on, but no real fights, no dramatic after-school specials. I got out of it fine and have good friends and family by my side. I have no idea what bullying is supposed to mean either, nowadays. Seems like a catch-all for anytime someone calls you a name.