Lady Gaga Responds To Ex-Classmates Who Said She’d Never Be Famous
Beyoncé’s words, “You know you that b—- when you cause all this conversation / Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper,” ring true for Lady Gaga. Recently, Gaga reflected on her humble beginnings, acknowledging a now-deleted Facebook group created by her classmates at New York University called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous.” Screenshots of this group, which used Gaga’s birth name, have circulated online among fans for years.
Addressing the group publicly, Gaga commented on a TikTok about it. The post showed a screenshot of the 12-member Facebook group next to a list of her numerous accomplishments, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, 13 Grammy Awards, 10 Billboard Music Awards, and 18 MTV Music Video Awards.
“Some people I went to college [with] made this way back when,” Gaga wrote. “This is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down — gotta keep going.”
Fans quickly responded to her comment. One wrote, “I would’ve never been able to sleep again tbh.” Another commented, “MOTHER provided context!!!!” while someone else said, “She’s not famous, she’s an ICON!”
During her time at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Gaga developed her stage persona before releasing her debut album, The Fame. She left NYU in 2005 to perform in New York clubs, eventually adopting the stage name “Lady Gaga,” inspired in part by Queen’s song “Radio Ga Ga.” Her ex-boyfriend and music producer Rob Fusari has also claimed credit for coining the name.
In a 2016 interview with Jamie Lee Curtis for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, Gaga explained that the alias represents a stronger aspect of her personality. “Gaga is this stronger individual part of myself that I discovered being young in New York — loving music, meeting young artists, working with musicians, writers, studying the scene and being involved in the lifestyle. I started to call myself Gaga. [It] was the nickname I had at my best.”
Gaga is currently promoting her role as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux. She posted on Instagram on Sept. 3, teasing both the Joker sequel’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and the upcoming release of the first single from her seventh album.
After the festival, Joker: Folie à Deux, also starring Joaquin Phoenix, will hit theaters on Oct. 4, and Gaga’s “LG7 first single” is set to drop the same month.
