(HMG) – When it comes to drug and alcohol addictions, whatever it takes to get clean and sober is probably a good thing. News of the World has some extracts from LADY GAGA: Just Dance – The Biography by Helia Phoenix. In it, Lady Gaga who won two Grammys last week, tells of being a teenage musical prodigy, who dropped out of her New York performing arts school at 20 and descended into a nightmare world of drugs. Her ravenous indulgence in LSD and “bags and bags” of cocaine to give her inspiration for her music was only halted by the spirit of her aunt, of whom she never meet in life.
“My cocaine soundtrack was always the Cure. I would lock myself in my room and listen to Never Enough on repeat while I did bags and bags of cocaine,” she said.
“I thought I was gonna die,” she says in an explosive new biography. “I wanted to be the artists I loved, like Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol – and I thought the only way to do it was to live the lifestyle.
“But then I realized my father’s sister Joanne, who’d died at 19, had instilled her spirit in me. She was a painter and a poet – and I had a spiritual vision I had to finish her business.”
Her closest companion remains her dead aunt – and she dedicated last year’s Fame Ball tour to her. “I never met her – but she’s been one of the most important figures in my life.”
Gaga, 23 – real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta also tells of how an act of desperation gave her the inspiration that created her Lady Gaga persona. One night, while striving for her big break, she caused a stir in a New York’s club with what would become her trademark – an impromptu strip on stage.
Gaga got so fed up at everyone talking through a song she ripped off her skirt and shirt and sat at the piano in only a bra, pants, fishnet stockings and white shoes. Everybody stared.
“That’s when I made a real decision about the kind of pop artist I wanted to be,” she says.
Stefani found her stage name when record producer Rob Fusari told her she reminded him of Freddie Mercury. A mis-typed text from Rob said Lady Gaga instead of Radio Ga Ga (A Queen song) – and a star was born.
