Latest / DISGRACELAND / Lady Gaga (Pt.1): How She Manipulated the Conspiracy Theorists on Her Way to Becoming The Biggest Pop Star on the Planet

Transcript

Lady Gaga (Pt.1): How She Manipulated the Conspiracy Theorists on Her Way to Becoming The Biggest Pop Star on the Planet · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: story about one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: A Grammy winning, chart topping, staggeringly successful musician, an artist
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: who refuses to be easily defined, a shape shifting, influential,
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  Speaker 1: five tool multi hyphenate icon, a singer, a songwriter, an actor,
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  Speaker 1: an endlessly compelling superstar with legions of followers from all
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  Speaker 1: over the world. She's more than mainstream. She is the mainstream.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Yet she's the voice of the marginalized, the alienated, the isolated,
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  Speaker 1: of freaks and monsters everywhere, and she inspires more than
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  Speaker 1: just fandom and obsession. She's compelled countless conspiracy theorists whose
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: claims about her are as absurd as they are horrifying.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: She's a man, She's a murderer. Are these claims true?
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  Speaker 1: And if not, why won't they go away? What is
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  Speaker 1: it about this artist that drives these persistent conspiracies. The
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: artist I'm talking about is, of course, Lady Gaga, an
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  Speaker 1: artist who yes, makes great music. Unlike that music I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show. That
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: melotron called Fishnets on Delancey MK One. I played you
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  Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to so
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: What by Pink? And why would I play you that
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  Speaker 1: specific slice of dirt bike dating Cheese? Could I afford it?
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  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: October fourth, two thousand and eight, And that was the
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  Speaker 1: day Lady Gaga's friend and musical collaborator Lena Morgana died,
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  Speaker 1: an event that kicked off one of the wildest, darkest
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  Speaker 1: rumors in modern music history. On this episode, Influencer per
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  Speaker 1: shape Shifter, Icon of sex or intersex, borrowed or stolen identity,
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  Speaker 1: suicide or murder, Illuminati or Catholic schoolgirl gone wrong, the
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  Speaker 1: Lady Gaga story you didn't know you needed. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and this this Disgraceland. Most people spend hours perfecting the
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  Speaker 1: outfits they're going to wear to gain entrance into exclusive nightclubs.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: The opposite is true if one seeks admission to Berlin's
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  Speaker 1: lab Oratory, part of the notorious Bergaine nightclub complex, which
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  Speaker 1: opens at eleven fifty nine pm Friday evening and closes
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  Speaker 1: around nine am Monday morning. Bergaine's doormen are as selective
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  Speaker 1: as Studio fifty four, as notorious Mark Bennecket once was,
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  Speaker 1: but twice as cruel at Bergaine, outrageous outfits are not encouraged.
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  Speaker 1: It's best to rock your simplest jeans and T shirt
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  Speaker 1: combo and act like you don't care, which, of course
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  Speaker 1: you very much do. The doorman's harsh East German stare
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  Speaker 1: betrays nothing. His face is blank as death and bleak
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  Speaker 1: like a Berlin mourning. Though your heart is in your throat,
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  Speaker 1: you play it cool. You're not drunk, you're not obviously high.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: You haven't spoken a word while in line, so the
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  Speaker 1: dorman has no idea that you don't speak German. He
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  Speaker 1: gives you a slow one or with gestapo like suspicion,
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  Speaker 1: and steps aside, clearing a free path to the heavy
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  Speaker 1: industrial door covered in graffiti. You return a stare with
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  Speaker 1: your own blankness and proceed through the door, which somehow
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  Speaker 1: opens on its own before you get to it. Inside
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  Speaker 1: this mammoth, fourth story brick and mortar tribute to Sodom
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  Speaker 1: and Gomorrah, you're surrounded by a blackness, only penetrated in
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  Speaker 1: minuscule moments by brief bursts of strobing white light. The
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  Speaker 1: pulsing house music pommels you somehow, It's both muffled and
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  Speaker 1: suffocatingly loud. Your ear drums hollow out. Then the walls are,
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  Speaker 1: your stomach vibrate. You wonder if this is what havana
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: syndrome feels like. The thought disappears, and so does the
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  Speaker 1: twinge of nausea as your heart rate quickens with anticipation.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: While you pass through Brigaanne's labyrinth of long, winding hallways
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  Speaker 1: beneath forty foot ceilings. You walk past secret passageways to
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  Speaker 1: even more secret rooms where you and others will partake
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  Speaker 1: and acts that, decades ago, where they not kept secret,
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  Speaker 1: would have resulted in harsh societal condemnation, persecution, jail, violence,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and even death. You press on up countless staircases, slipping
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  Speaker 1: through various entrances into a maze work of club settings.
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  Speaker 1: You wonder how you'll describe this the Burgane Nightclub Complex
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  Speaker 1: to your friends. Imagine if Trent Reznor designed a music
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  Speaker 1: and dance mall dedicated to debauchery. That's about the best
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  Speaker 1: you can come up with. As you rub shoulders with
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  Speaker 1: the like minded hedonists from all over the globe, different countries,
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  Speaker 1: different backgrounds, with different looks and different sexual orientations, though
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  Speaker 1: mostly gay, and each of them seeking a different version
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  Speaker 1: of what you seek, the freedom to be who you
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  Speaker 1: truly are, and to align your true identity with your
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  Speaker 1: most honest sexual desires. The word freak seems pejorative, but
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  Speaker 1: that's not how you see it. You view the word
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  Speaker 1: the same as the composer of the Stuart Price remix
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  Speaker 1: that's blasting across the Burganne dance floor, the same way
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  Speaker 1: that that composer views the word freak as a badge
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  Speaker 1: of honor. And that composer, of course, is not only
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  Speaker 1: your favorite pop star. She's your champion, your icon. You're
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: one of her little monsters, and she's your quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: mother monster. One of the biggest stars of the twenty
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  Speaker 1: first century. Lady Gaga, who was just as you were,
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  Speaker 1: born this way, an artist who told the world that
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  Speaker 1: she always felt like a freak, An artist who took
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  Speaker 1: her awkward feelings of high school alienation and isolation and
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  Speaker 1: used them as fuel fuel to empower her and her
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  Speaker 1: millions of fans, you included. She empowered all of you
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  Speaker 1: to embrace your true identities and to reclaim the word freak,
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  Speaker 1: and with that reclamation comes liberation. Freedom. And so here
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: you are inside the Bergane nightclub complex, outside the entryway
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  Speaker 1: to the lab Oratory. The club stylizes its name as
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  Speaker 1: lab dot Oratory, a semi clever take on the word laboratory.
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  Speaker 1: Thus my kind of strange pronunciation of the club's name.
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  Speaker 1: Lab Oratory isn't just any club. It's a sex club
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  Speaker 1: with rules. Lab Oratory is for men only on most nights,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and the club's motto is play safe, dress dirty. Before
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  Speaker 1: one can enter, one must make a prerequisite stop in
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  Speaker 1: the locker room. You know the drill. Lab Oratory advertisements
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  Speaker 1: are clear. There's a strict dress code, fully naked, shoes
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  Speaker 1: only under the locker rooms fluorescent lights. You strip down,
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  Speaker 1: stuff your clothes in a plastic bag and throw the
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  Speaker 1: bag into a locker. Eagerly, you make your way into
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  Speaker 1: lab Oratory, again, fully naked except for your sneakers. The
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  Speaker 1: club's flyers prohibit not only clothing but also cologne, and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you immediately understand why. The smell hits you almost as
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  Speaker 1: hard as the music. In a word, a club smells
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  Speaker 1: like men, a raunchy, exhilarating mix of pheromones, sex, and
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  Speaker 1: the sweet scent of vodka, which famously is odorless until
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  Speaker 1: it passes through one's sweat pores. All of it fills
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  Speaker 1: the air and your nostrils, and with the music, you're
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  Speaker 1: already enthralled before your brain even begins to register where
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  Speaker 1: your eyes are seeing black and white sexual psychedelia, a
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  Speaker 1: dom doom dance floor jammed with different body types, all nude,
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  Speaker 1: all sharing the same space, strangers clinging to some type
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  Speaker 1: of communal intimacy, and you now know that you'll never
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  Speaker 1: be able to explain this. It's something that can only
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  Speaker 1: be felt. This is something far too experience, like love
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  Speaker 1: or faith, something that words too often failed to describe.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Gas Masks hang from the wall. Men speak to you
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  Speaker 1: with gestures, signals, not words. Words are no good here.
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  Speaker 1: The music is too loud, and the shared frequency that
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  Speaker 1: everyone is plugged into makes speaking unnecessary. You all want
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  Speaker 1: the same thing, not sex, freedom, and everyone in this
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  Speaker 1: club understands what that means. This isn't the nineteen seventies.
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  Speaker 1: This isn't New York's meatpacking district. Floor shows and spectacle
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  Speaker 1: fisting are outre This is the twenty first century. And
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: though lab oratory is primal, and though nearly every kink
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  Speaker 1: is allowed, this space is also profoundly respectful. To repeat,
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  Speaker 1: the so called freak is celebrated, and with this respect
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  Speaker 1: comes the type of tenderness that would otherwise be absent
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  Speaker 1: from a nightclub full of naked men dancing and fucking
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  Speaker 1: to the sound pounds of Lady Gaga house mixes. After all,
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  Speaker 1: laboratory is the setting for one of the most notorious
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  Speaker 1: chapters of what has become the myth of Lady Gaga.
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  Speaker 1: It's the place where one of the most unsettling and
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  Speaker 1: controversial conspiracy theories surrounding the pop star would be finally
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  Speaker 1: put to bed. Ever since Lady Gaga burst into mainstream
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  Speaker 1: public consciousness in two thousand and eight, conflicting information about
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  Speaker 1: who she was and where she came from has persisted.
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  Speaker 1: To hear Gaga tell it back then. Anyway, the young
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  Speaker 1: twenty three year old pop star described herself to interviewers
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  Speaker 1: as having grown up as an outsider, a quote unquote
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  Speaker 1: goth girl with hair dyed black. Equally obsessed with David
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  Speaker 1: Bowie and Judy Garland. Gaga strategically offered other bits for
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  Speaker 1: her past, too, like the fact that before she became
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  Speaker 1: a global sensation selling out stadiums and countries all over
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  Speaker 1: the world, she worked a poll on New York's Lower
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  Speaker 1: East Side as a burlesque dancer. Or that Gaga, like
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  Speaker 1: many feral denizens of the LS back in the mid oughts,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: from the Strokes to Ryan Adams, knew exactly what it
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  Speaker 1: meant when a fellow barhawk whispered meet me in the bathroom.
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  Speaker 1: These biographical sketches of Lady Gaga's past, doled out in
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  Speaker 1: the many interviews she gave as her career began to skyrocket,
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  Speaker 1: are not false, but they do color only between the
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  Speaker 1: lines of a carefully designed, artist driven creation myth. It's
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  Speaker 1: an origin story that leaves out a lot, and as
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  Speaker 1: it pertains to Gaga's high school year, presents it almost
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  Speaker 1: and I say the word almost very intentionally, an almost
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  Speaker 1: false depiction of who she was. Do I think that
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  Speaker 1: we should fault Lady Gaga for this? Absolutely not. Most
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  Speaker 1: of the best artists, from Bob Dylan to Lou Reed
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  Speaker 1: to Jack White Bowie and too many others to name.
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  Speaker 1: The best artists painstakingly fueled their own myths by carefully
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  Speaker 1: cultivating their origin stories Bob Dylan wasn't raised by Carnie
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  Speaker 1: Barker's and Lou Reed didn't go to Harvard. Jack White
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  Speaker 1: wasn't Meg White's brother, David Bowie didn't fall to Earth,
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  Speaker 1: and Lady Gaga wasn't born with a penis. More on
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  Speaker 1: that when we returned to Labratory in a moment, But first,
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  Speaker 1: let's quickly look at who Lady Gaga was before she
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  Speaker 1: was Lady Gaga. She was Stephanie Germanada, and she grew
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  Speaker 1: up rich on New York'supper West Side. You know the
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  Speaker 1: guest wi fi you used to get onto the Internet
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  Speaker 1: with your computer in hotels, the one that's literally called
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  Speaker 1: guest WiFi. Her dad, Joe Germanada, invented that. He also
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  Speaker 1: invented Stephanie Germanada aka Lady Gaga. Joe and his wife
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  Speaker 1: raised their daughter Catholic, sending her to a prestigious private school,
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  Speaker 1: the exclusive all girls Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan.
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  Speaker 1: The school is set in a converted mansion, and if
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you want an idea of what type of exclusivity we're
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: talking about, Convent of the Sacred Heart's past students include
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  Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, heiress to the Vanderbilt Fortune,
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  Speaker 1: Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy in
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: both Paris, and Nikki Hilton. I didn't attend Catholic school,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: but I imagine it's a fairly stuffy experience. I can
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  Speaker 1: see how someone like Lady Gaga might describe her experience
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  Speaker 1: there as that of an outsider being made to feel
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  Speaker 1: like a quote unquote freak. But former classmates and photos
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  Speaker 1: of Stephanie Germanada's school days, which one can now find
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  Speaker 1: on the Internet, they all paint a different picture of
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  Speaker 1: her school days. Classmates describe her as social involved. Even
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  Speaker 1: outgoing photos reveal a smiling, fresh faced, enthusiastic student wearing
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  Speaker 1: her school uniform to code and eagerly participating in masks
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  Speaker 1: and in student plays in musicals. To this day, Lady
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Gaga remains close with a number of her high school classmates.
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  Speaker 1: Her loyalty to her friends is surpassed only by her
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: loyalty to her family, where Gaga has made no secret
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  Speaker 1: about the fact that, despite being one of the biggest
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  Speaker 1: stars on the planet, she still often returns to her
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  Speaker 1: parents three story duplex to surround herself with their love
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and the familiar comforts of her childhood home. All of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this is at odds with how Gaga has described herself.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: We're all very aware of how nineties and early aughts
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  Speaker 1: outsiders and freaks looked and behaved. They were seldom seen
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  Speaker 1: smiling in yearbook photos with other student it's eagerly attending
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  Speaker 1: Catholic Mass, ambitiously going for lead roles in school plays,
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  Speaker 1: or heading home on weekends to hang with their parents.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: After becoming rock stars, their histories look quite different. Actually,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: late nineties and early odds outsiders were infrequently, if ever,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: pictured in candid moments in their yearbooks smiling. Real music
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: driven outsiders didn't eagerly attend anything except punk and DII shows,
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  Speaker 1: never mind Catholic Mass, and they didn't go out for
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  Speaker 1: school plays, and, god willing they ever achieved rock star status,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the last place they were going to go as a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: young twenty something was home to mommy and daddy on
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the weekend. But all of this said, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: Lady Gaga was lying about feeling like an outsider, despite
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the person we now know that she was pretty fame
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: because Lady Gaga had something that ninety nine percent of
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  Speaker 1: her fellow humans don't have a blinding, almost suffocating ambition
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  Speaker 1: to be the biggest star on the planet. From an
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  Speaker 1: early age, she was absolutely driven to make it as
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a performer, specifically as a singer and songwriter. You can
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: see it in those pictures from Sacred Heart, and you
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: can see it in those embarrassing videos of Stephanie Germanada
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  Speaker 1: from her NYU days back in the early two thousands
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  Speaker 1: on stage at the Bitter End, about as uncool a
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  Speaker 1: New York venue as you could find at the time,
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  Speaker 1: fighting her way through led Zeppelin covers to a near
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: empty room with a half ass hippie band backing her up.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And you can see it in later photos of a
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: reinvented Lady Gaga from her Lower East Side days, working
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the bars on Ludlow and Delancey for every ounce of
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  Speaker 1: credibility she could scrouch and leotard's and go go boots.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: During a time when she was clawing her way toward
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a major label record deal, Stephanie Germanada wasn't going to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: be denied. If you spoke to those who have known
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Lady Gaga for a long time, they'd I'll tell you
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  Speaker 1: that this ambition was always there. She was always hustling.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: She worked her way into a development deal with the
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: top notch producer. She was writing, demoing, constantly, chasing down
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: live gigs, hanging out at the right places, showing up
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: at the right parties, seeking out the right people to
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: be seen with, and sleeping with the hottest bartender on
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  Speaker 1: the Lower East Side, a long haired metal head named
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Loof because of course he was. And she was scouring
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the trendy digital blog pages of last night's party and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the Cobra Snake for pictures of herself from the night before.
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  Speaker 1: For Lady Gaga, the hustle never stopped. She lived, worked, slept,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and dreamed. Hustle. Everything she did, including engaging in her
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: favorite topic of conversation, herself, was all about making it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: This type of ambition isn't only blinding, it's isolating. When
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: you orient your life around a goal with the type
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: of drive that causes you to behave differently than anyone
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: else you know and come in contact with, well, you're
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: by definition alienating yourself. So was Lady Gaga an outsider
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: back in her formative years, Yes, absolutely she was. She
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: just invented an origin story her audience could better relate
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: to and that speaks to her genius. But what about
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: her penis you ask? Oh? Yeah, right back to the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: lab oratory in Berlin. When Lady Gaga and her entourage
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: entered the Bergane nightclub complex in twenty ten, Stephanie Germanada's
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: identity had long since been supplanted by the Mother Monster,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the Gagaloo, Gags Gaga, Lady Gaga, the new queen of pop.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: By twenty ten, Lady Gaga was caught in a hurricane
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  Speaker 1: of unprecedented success for a new artist. I could fill
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the entirety of this podcast giving examples of just how
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: staggeringly successful Gaga had become by twenty ten, only three
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: years into her professional career, but I'm not going to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: do that. After releasing her day album The Fame in
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, the woman didn't just have hit singles.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: She had the biggest selling singles of the year. She
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: captivated the world with her performance at the fifty second
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Grammy Awards, drew more than a few comparisons to mid
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: career Madonna, chief among them by pissing off the Catholics
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: with their song Alejandro, which the Catholic League deemed blasphemous
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and as she won three Grammys, countless MTV Video Music Awards,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: topped critics lists, and Rolling Stone, seemingly everywhere else, and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: by the end of twenty ten was named by Time
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: magazine as one of the one hundred most influential people
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: in the world. She also became the first person ever
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to achieve a billion views on YouTube for her Bad
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Romance video. But it was her Glastonbury performance in two
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: thousand and nine that really stoked the imaginations of the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists. The show was a triumph. It cemented Lady
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Gaga on the world stage. The audience simply could not
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: get enough of Gaga, not just her performance, but her personality.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: They ate, as they say, from the palm of her hand,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and in the end, Lady Gaga sent them away by
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: shooting flames out of her nipples literally well literally out
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of her bra anyway. But shortly thereafter, videos and photos
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: from the performance began circulating online. Videos and photos that
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: online sluice claimed showed a bulge beneath Gaga's skirt, a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: bulge that supposedly proved that Lady Gaga was intersex quotes
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: fake quotes that is from Gaga supposedly confirmed that she
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: had both male and female genitalia. They went viral instantly.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Gaga refused to deny the claims. Her management denied them
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: for her, which, given the fact that her father is
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: part of her management team, you can understand why. But
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: still Gaga said nothing on the subject. In the corner
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of the Internet that is concerned with all things Gaga
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was flooded with altered imagery exaggerating the bulge in her crotch. Silly, yes, absolutely,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: but it's astonishing how many people fell for this ridiculousness
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and how persistent this rumor was until Gaga visited lab
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Oratory with her entourage. After visiting lab Oratory, Gaga, her security,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a few friends, her makeup artists, and the British journalist
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Caitlyn Moran from the Times of London filled the dance
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: floor of another Bergang complex nightclub, this one with its
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: own set of sex swings, bathtubs and beds. According to Moran,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Gaga was unlucky in love this evening. Despite her pop
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: star status. The gay clientele were happy to host, but
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Gaga apparently struck out in her attempts to get laid
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that hole, not having a penis thing being an issue
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: in all, but that's not the proof that should have
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: finally dispelled the intersex rumor. After ditching her McQueen designed
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: cloak and braving the bar by herself wearing just her fishnets,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: panties and a bra, Gaga invited Katelyn Moran into the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Berganne Club's bathroom for what Moran thought would be an
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: opportunity to do blow with her favorite pop star, but
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: which turned out to instead be an extended girl hang,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: whereupon the reporter witnessed with her own two eyes Lady
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Gaga squat on the toilet and relieve herself through her
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: fish nets and so irrefutable proof of Lady Gaga's lack
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: of male genitalia was famously published by Kitlyn Moran in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the Times, but of course the conspiracy theorists wouldn't accept it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: A year later, in a sixty minutes interview with Anderson Cooper,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: no less, Gaga wondered aloud why she should quote waste
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: my time and give a press release about whether or
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: not I have a penis. My fan don't care, and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: neither do I. The conspiracy theorist went wild with this
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: non denial head over to Reddit, and you'll find that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: they still haven't let go of it. And to think
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the whole quote unquote, Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite thing
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: is only the third most popular conspiracy theory surrounding this
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: global pop star. We'll be right back after this. We're, We're, We're.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Lady Gagay wasn't the least bit phased about anonymous Internet
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: trolls questioning her physiology online, but having her home invaded
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that was truly horrifying. Flashback two thousand and six, New
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: York's Lower East Side. The shower felt good on her body,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that it, like most of the utilities
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and Lady got one seventy six Stanton Street apartment, barely
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: worked half the time, unlike her Stephanie Germanada, worked all
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the time. At least it seemed that way. Even when
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: she wasn't working, she was looking for work, which in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: itself was its own kind of work. Her friend, Lady Starlight,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: danced burlesque at the Slipper Room on Orchard and Stanton,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: close by Stephanie's apartment. Burlesque dancers are often confused with strippers,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but the difference between the two is significant. The point
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of burlesque is to tease and entertain, to tell a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: story through the dancing on stage. The removal of clothing
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: typically never gets fully nude. The point of stripping or
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: pole dancing is often sex. Strippers, depending on local laws,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: remove as much clothing as possible, usually until they're fully nude,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and they entice clients into back rooms for paid private
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: shows and often more. But like stripping, burless dancing is
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: hard work. More often than not, the dancers work on
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: stage in heels, and it's a real workout, and it's intense.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Which is not to suggest that though burlesque is considered
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: more of an art form than stripping, the creeps aren't
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: part of the gig. They are, and the sexual harassment
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: can be just as stressful as the physical fatigue. None
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of this stopped Stephanie Germanada from pushing Lady Starlight to
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: get her an audition as a burlesque dancer at the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Slipper Room. Stephanie needed the money and perhaps the experience
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: as well. These were the days before Stephanie became Lady Gaga.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: These were the formative years Stephanie was still defining herself
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: as an artist. She was signed to a development deal
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: with Rob Fusari, a successful producer who'd worked previously with
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Destiny's Child and Will Smith. This guaranteed Stephanie precisely nothing. However,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: she had no record deal, not yet, so every bit
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of her energy was focused on creating a demo with
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Fusari that would net her one, and the fact that
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: she was involved in an on again, off again romantic
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: relationship with her producer only made this time in her
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: life more messy. Stephanie made Lady Starlight proud. She nailed
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: her Slipper Room audition, and soon the pair had their
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: own show, The New York Street Revival and Trash Dance.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The lights in the slipper Room fade to black, the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: audience a mix of downtown hipsters and bridge and tunnel herbs,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: all of them sipping cheap, overpriced beer and wine and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: water down cocktails. Eagerly awaits the show, and then Queen's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Radio Gaga explodes from the speakers, and there she is
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: a dancer like they've never seen, five foot two but commanding. Nonetheless,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: her hair is black, bangs peased out over her shoulders.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: She's in fishnets and panties and grinding to Queen, which
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: transitions effortlessly into a song the audience doesn't recognize but
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: vibes with. Nonetheless, it's one of Stephanie's originals, Electric Kiss.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: As the show progresses, Stephanie strips down tojust her panties
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and pasties, and the show is Trey rock and roll,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: which is to also say, it's dirty and slutty, and
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the audience is enthralled. The club's owner is happy, but
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: he knows what's coming, and that would be jealousy. The
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: other girls aren't going to stand for this much attention
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: being heaped upon one dancer. The discord is going to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: lead to changes, and he knows he'll soon have to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: fire Stephanie, whose star is clearly too big for the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: slipper room, which he does. Trapesing home through the grime
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of the Lower east Side, Stephanie, with her big eighties
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: metal hair and leotard and go go boots, is gockdat
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and mocked by some neighborhood boys who mistakenly take her
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: for a sex worker. She ticks it in stride, unlocking
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: her Stanton Street apartment building door to head in for
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a much needed shower, and the water is hot and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the steam is thick. Her body seems to melt with
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: satisfaction under the shower's pressure, and then a noise, a clanging.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: What the hell is that? Stephanie whips back the shower
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: curtain and she swears she sees the outline of a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: body escaping from her bathroom doorway through her tiny apartment.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: She grabs a towel and gets out of the shower. Motherfuckers.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Those neighborhood boys, the shits followed her home and somehow
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: that jimmyed her door and work their pervy asses into
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: her apartment to sneak a peak of her naked in
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the shower. There was a gross invasion of privacy One then,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: like her experience berlet dancing, no doubt helped shape the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: songs she was currently demo, songs that would eventually appear
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: on her debut album, The Fame, specifically her song Paparazzi,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: which is both a devotion to and a critique of fame.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: The influence of Lady Gaga's apprenticeship on the Lower East
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Side on her art is immense. You can still feel
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the burlesque influence in her music as recently as her
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: latest twenty twenty five Grammy nominated album Mayham. Perhaps more
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: significant is the camp influence Gaga pulled out for her
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: iconic arrival at the Met in twenty nineteen, choosing as
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: one of her four outfits a fishnet and panties number
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: with bangs but minus the teased hair to elevate burlesque
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: into high fashion, her nostalgic return to where burlesque influence came.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Mind you after she obtained true pop icon status by
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: turning into critical and commercial star performance on the big
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: screen opposite at the Cooper in the blockbuster remake of
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Judy Garlands and then Barbara Streisand's A Star Is Born.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: But back in the mid adds on the Las, Stephanie
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Germanada was still trying to find herself amid the crime
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and grime of Lower Manhattan. For starters, she needed a
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: stage name. Stephanie Germanada wasn't going to cut it. Her
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: father had done a lot for her career. He used
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: his connections to secure her early gigs, paid for piano lessons,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: negotiated her contract with Rob Hussari, even paid for her
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Stanton Street apartment. But he hadn't given her a stage
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: name at birth, as Madonna's father had Queen's Radio Gaga
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't just a song Stephanie danced to. It was a
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: song she was obsessed with, so much so that her
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: producer began playfully calling her Radio Gaga. And one day
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: her producer, Rob reached out to Stephanie via text Radio Gaga,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: meet you at the studio at noon. But Rob's phone
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: auto corrected his message from Radio Gaga to Lady Gaga.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And that was that. Stephanie Germanada had a new name.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: That's if you believe her version of her origin story.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: There's another Lady Gaga origin story from back in those days,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: a story that doesn't involve cute, rom com rated text
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: message anecdotes, a story that instead involves murder. On October fifth,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, a major motion picture entitled A Star Is Born,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: co starring the by this time massively successful popstar Lady Gaga,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: was released on YouTube. A video promoting the film prompted
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: this comment from a user and I quote. And then,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: on the ten year anniversary of her suicide, Lady Gaga
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: releases a movie about an aspiring pop star who benefits
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: from using the look and sound of another star who
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: was driven to kill himself for the sake of her career. Okay,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and what the hell is this all about? That's what
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you might be asking yourself, Or if you're a massive
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Gaga fan, you might have been asking yourself this back
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. Who's suicide? Exactly? Exactly? Who is this
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: YouTube commentator talking about? The digital conversation swiftly moved over
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to Reddit, where one commentator added in response to the
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: YouTube comment, Yeah, like taking her song, changing one letter
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and branding it as hers, while basically also stealing her
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: music style and fashion style as well, taken on by
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Gaga right after she sacrificed her buddy for it all.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Another user chimes in with, on the other hand, Gaga's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: adoption of her friend's style after her sudden death might
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: just be how she's coping with losing a close friend.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: It might be her way of keeping her friend alive
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: in her heart. But this sober reasoning is quickly torpedoed
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: by yet another commenter, who says, the way I heard it,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: her friend actually killed Lady Gaga and has been wearing
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: her skin for the last couple of years. So who
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: is this friend who suddenly died? Who killed herself. Who
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: is Lady Gaga being accused by conspiracy theorists on the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: internet of murdering after stealing both her music and style
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to obtain fame, and that friend of Lady Gaga's would
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: be Lena Morgana. Lena Morgana was more than a friend
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to Lady Gaga. She was an artistic collaborator. The two
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: of them worked together alongside producer Rob Hussari during Gaga's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: early demo days. In pictures of the two from that time,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: they do indeed resemble one another, with a similar sense
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: of fashion and attitude, but only one aspiring artist became
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: a star. The other one, Lena Morgana, will be dead
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: before Lady Gaga released her first album, before her first
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: single made the charts, before her first major music videos
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: were ever released. One of those videos, for the song Paparazzi,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: shows Lady Gaga being thrown to her death from a building.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: The video was released in May two thousand and nine.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Seven months before that, Lena Morgana was found dead thrown
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: from the roof of the Staten Island Hotel. I'm Jake Brennan.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: In this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued Disgraceland
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. Rate
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: slash at disgracelandpod, rock a roll up. He's the Bad
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: band Land