Lady Gaga promised fans an “intimate” and “deeply personal” look at the year leading up to her Super Bowl halftime show performance in her Netflix documentary “Five Foot Two.” With cameras following her through doctor’s appointments, backstage meltdowns and makeup-free downtime, she delivered.
The singer, who released her latest album “Joanne” last October and is gearing up for the May 2018 release of the Bradley Cooper-directed film “A Star Is Born,” had a lot to say in the nearly two-hour doc, which was made available for streaming Friday.
Though it focused more on entertainment industry emptiness than the actual day-to-day doings of the performer, revealing and at times chilling voice-over gave us a glimpse into the mind of Stefani Germanotta.
We rounded up 10 of Gaga’s most revealing quotes from the doc.
On toning down her signature look: “We’ve seen me f—— glamorous for almost 10 years, it’s boring. It really is boring. I just wanna have a uniform and I think my uniform should be black jeans and black boots and I just wear that a lot and we get versions of that made.”
On straying from the Gaga image: “I can see now. I don’t need to have a million wigs on and all that s— to make a statement. I know that we wanna elevate everything. I’m trying to elevate everything, but I can’t elevate it to a point where I become Lady Gaga again. Because then it’s like, why did I make this record?”
On the Madonna feud: “I admired her always and I still admire her no matter what she might think of me. The only thing that really bothers me about her is that I’m Italian and from New York, so if I got a problem with somebody, I’m gonna f—— tell you to your face. But, no matter how much respect I have for her as a performer, I could never wrap my head around the fact that she wouldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that I was reductive.”
On scoring the Super Bowl halftime show performance: “I’ve never really done a lifetime achievement award or performance that was meant to celebrate my career and I feel like this is that moment. The truth is there really isn’t anything bigger than this, so I better enjoy it today because it’s not going to happen again.”
On balancing fame and relationships: “It’s a sad day when I’m doing the Super Bowl and I’m so excited to do it, but I can’t help but realize that when I sold 10 million records, I lost Matt [Williams]; I sold 30 million, I lose Luc [Carl]; I get the movie [“A Star Is Born”], I lose Taylor [Kinney]. It’s like a turnover.”
On her July 2016 breakup with fiancé Taylor Kinney: “It’s hard enough when love isn’t working out the way you want it to and you have to walk down the street with somebody going, ‘Are You OK?’ I had to go into the deepest pain in my life. I had to go into the part of myself that you don’t want to face.”
On being a woman in the industry: “When producers, unlike Mark [Ronson], start to act like, ‘you’d be nothing without me,’ for women especially, those men have so much power that they can have women in a way that no other men can. Whenever they want. Whatever they want.”
On rebelling against the industry norm: “When they wanted me to be sexy, when they wanted me to be pop, I always put some absurd spin on it to make me feel like I was in control … If I’m gonna be sexy on the VMAs singing about the paparazzi, I’m gonna do it while bleeding to death, reminding you of what fame did to Marilyn Monroe.”
On overcoming her own insecurities in “Joanne”: “I never felt comfortable enough to sing and just be this way, to just sing and wear my hair back. I never felt pretty enough or smart enough or a good enough musician.”
On her health and fibromyalgia diagnosis: “When I feel the adrenaline in my music and my fans, I can f—— go, but it doesn’t mean I’m not in pain.”
