Celebs Who Can't Stand Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga has millions of Little Monsters around the world, but these celebrities probably aren't in their ranks. The "Bad Romance" singer has had so many beefs she could practically make a meat dress out of them. Here are stars who can't stand Mother Monster—even if a few publicly came around to say otherwise.
Kelly Osbourne
Though Kelly Osbourne and Mother Monster get along now, for a while their feud was ugly. It began in 2009, when Osbourne referred to Gaga as a "butterface." Afterward, the singer's fans went on the offensive on Twitter, even going so far as to tell Osbourne to kill herself, Osbourne revealed in Cosmopolitan in 2013. That same year, Gaga wrote Osbourne an open letter to the Fashion Police critic, calling her out for taking a "less compassionate path." Kelly's mom, Sharon, responded with an open letter of her own on Facebook, calling Gaga's message of compassion "hypocritical" and "full of contradictions."
In an effort to make amends, Gaga sent Kelly a birthday cake...and Kelly lashed out again, telling the songstress in since-deleted tweets to "eat s**t." Kelly later apologized and acknowledged that she "acted like a child," and the two have since gotten along.
Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey took a shot at Lady Gaga in a tracked called "So Legit" that leaked online summer 2013. In the song, she addresses Gaga by her given name, Stefani Germanotta, singing, "Stefani, you suck / I know you're selling twenty million / Wish they could have seen you / When we booed you off in Williamsburg...What happened to our scene? Have we all gone Gaga crazy?" Despite whatever bad blood they may have had back in the day, however, the pair seemed to get along quite well at an Oscar party in February 2016, so it appears they've put this tone-deaf demo behind them.
Madonna
Lady Gaga was accused of copying the Queen of Pop for much of her career, but Madonna never actually commented on it until January 2012, when she told 20/20, "[Lady Gaga is] a very talented artist. I certainly think she references me a lot in her work. Sometimes I think it's amusing and flattering and well done. [She makes] a statement about taking something that was in the zeitgeist, you know, 20 years ago and turning it inside out and reinterpreting it. There's a lot of ways to look at it. I can't really be annoyed by it because, obviously, I've influenced her."
Not bad, right? But when asked specifically about Gaga's song "Born This Way," which was compared to Madge's "Express Yourself," Madonna sassed, "When I heard it on the radio, I said that sounds very familiar. It feels reductive. When asked what she meant by "reductive," Madonna sipped her tea and became an instant meme when she replied, "Look it up."
After keeping mostly quiet for a bit, in February 2015, Madonna sassed to Rolling Stone, "I don't think she wants my crown...The only time I ever criticized Lady Gaga was when I felt like she blatantly ripped off one of my songs. It's got nothing to do with 'she's taking my crown' or 'she's in some space of mine.' She has her thing. I do think she is a very talented singer songwriter. It was just that one issue. And everybody's obviously run with it and turned it into a huge feud, which I think is really boring...I don't care anymore."
Perez Hilton
In the beginning of Gaga's career, blogger Perez Hilton was one of her biggest champions. Then, around 2011, he changed his tune completely. He told Australian TV show Mornings (via The Daily Mail) in June 2014 that the catalyst was an interview gone awry back in 2011. "She proceeded to get obliterated drunk, drinking Jameson, and she was a surprisingly functioning drunk woman," he said, adding that asking about her then-boyfriend set her off. "The [question] framing made her real angry," he said. "The fact that I brought up her boyfriend made her livid and she stormed off the set and stopped the interview."
Gaga's interpretation was pretty different, though the timeline matched up in terms of the ill-fated 2011 interview.
"He started asking me really terrible questions, and he was being very negative about Born This Way, and we had had a lot to drink," Gaga told Howard Stern (via the Los Angeles Times) in November 2013. "He was supposed to be my friend and I felt betrayed, so I started crying. And then my friend had to come in and pull the camera out, they wouldn't turn the cameras off. And then he apologized, but I sort of felt like it was like, 'But I'm Perez Hilton so I'm allowed to treat you this way.'" She added, "He's just mad that I don't want to hang out anymore because I don't want to be around fake people. I really believed, when I first met him, that he wanted to change. I really believed that he wanted to bully people less on his site and that he wanted to move into a more positive space. I was really there for him and I really supported him."
Kerli
Estonian pop singer Kerli lashed out at Gaga on MySpace in January 2010, long after most of the world had moved on to Facebook (which may explain why her mainstream success has lagged behind Gaga's).
"It's kinda f**king funny that Lady Gaga also has yellow hair now," a then-yellow-haired Kerli wrote (via Neon Limelight). "I wish she would f**king stop ripping off everything I do. F**king b***h."
She apologized a day later, telling fans in a chat (via Neon Limelight), "I feel awful right now. I wish I wouldn't have done it. I don't want anyone to think I have anything bad to say about [Gaga] because I've always said that she's awesome at what she does, and I've been watching her career long before anybody knew who she was and met her long before anybody knew who she was. This morning I was reading the news and I saw that Lady Gaga also had yellow hair. I've been doing so much to not look anything like her and I feel like everything I do she'll do two weeks later," she said.
She continued, "It's like every time I do something different and I post a picture up on MySpace, she's also looking the same way within two week's time...I know she knows who I am and I'm good friends with some of the members of her team and...it's just a little much that I'm trying so hard not to look anything like her and she'll just end up looking like me anyway. I just lost it for a second and I called her a b***h. It was really immature of me and I should have kept it to myself 'cause I know the world would take it completely the wrong way."
Roisin Murphy
Irish singer Roisin Murphy complained to the Evening Herald that Mother Monster ripped off of her style early in her career. "She [Lady Gaga] has copied my style, she took my shoulder pads and all that," Murphy griped, adding, "Mind you she doesn't wear the bottom half!" She added to the Daily Mail (via Irish Central), "She's copied my style. I met her about a year ago before she got really big and I had no clue that this was all going to happen. She wasn't wearing shoulder pads at the time, and I was...Lady Gaga is just a poor imitation of me."
Die Antwoord
Lady Gaga generously offered South African rap group Die Antwoord an opening slot on tour with her. Instead of being flattered and excited at the prospect of reaching more listeners, they viciously attacked her in their 2012 music video for "Fatty Boom Boom," in which a man dressed in Gaga's infamous meat dress meets several violent, horrific, and graphic incidents, including death by lions. After the video was released, Gaga shot back at the group, tweeting, "I [find] you freaky but you don't have a hit...I guess it's not a good idea to tell someone you're a fan. Nevermind! We get it, you're not a Little Monster." Die Antwoord responded on Twitter (though they didn't @reply Gaga), writing, "lady... even tho u r 'larger' than us... we still cooler than u... plus we don't have prawns in our private." They took shots at her again in September 2015 for allegedly biting member Yolandi's quasi-Vulcan, bleach blond hairstyle.
Azealia Banks
Lady Gaga was slated to collaborate with rapper Azealia Banks on a track called "Red Flame" for ARTPOP, but the song was never officially released and didn't make the album. Banks then accused Gaga of stealing the track, even though Mother Monster never actually released it. Banks also accused Gaga of copying mermaid aesthetics from her and alleged that ARTPOP—as in the title—was stolen from her own self-proclaimed genre name "witch hop." Gaga never responded directly to Banks, but did tell fans in 2013, "She has a bad attitude." Not to be outdone, Banks mocked Gaga for supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Christina Aguilera
Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera get along beautifully now and even collaborated on a remix of Gaga's song "Do What U Want," but they had a pretty vicious history thanks to their respective teams.
Aguilera seemed to start the beef, telling the Los Angeles Times in November 2008, "You know, that's funny that you mention that. This person [Lady Gaga] was just brought to my attention not too long ago. I'm not quite sure who this person is, to be honest. I don't know if it is a man or a woman. I just wasn't sure. I really don't spend any time on the Internet, so I guess I live a little under a rock in that respect." Uh, rude!
A month later, Gaga reportedly responded, "Well, it was very flattering when it happened. She's such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn't know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way, though of course I don't just want to be remembered for the Christina Aguilera scandal...There are no hard feelings with Christina at all...They saw a huge, Grammy-winning star who's been around for years and they recognized Lady Gaga. That to me is quite an accomplishment."
Donny Osmond
Donny Osmond, onetime teen idol and lifelong Mormon, took offense at Gaga's video for "Telephone." "Unlike 20 years ago, in today's modern, viral world in which content becomes instantaneously available irrespective of age, I wonder whether the music industry might need to rethink its marketing policies with regard to making an explicit music video containing profanity, sexual exploitation, nudity, and graphic violence available to anyone with Internet access," Osmond said in a statement (via the New York Daily News) in March 2010. "I wouldn't want my child to watch this video."
Adam Levine
Adam Levine got into a subtweeting war with Gaga in September 2013 around the time her "Applause" video, which was inspired by Sandro Botticelli's Venus, was garnering buzz. The Voice coached started it when he tweeted, "Ugh..recycling old art for a younger generation doesn't make you an artist. It makes you an art teacher," then followed up with, "I unabashedly love writing and performing pop music for both myself AND everyone around me. That's it. It doesn't need any extra sauce." Gaga indirectly replied, "uh oh guys the art police is here." Three days later, Levine tweeted again, writing, "by the way, im NOT an artist. i sing in a band and i make music with my friends...while we're at it we should call the grammar police."
M.I.A.
M.I.A. complained to NME in April 2010, "None of [Gaga's] music is reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She's not progressive, but she's a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I f**king do!"
Deadmau5
DJ and producer Deadmau5 wasn't a fan of Gaga's collaborative video with Marina Abramovic, in which the singer is naked in the woods and a field and howls. (See it here, but know it's NSFW.) He tweeted, "what the actual f**k? if some idiot howls in the woods and no one's around, does it make a sound? MYTH BUSTED!" After receiving the wrath of her Little Monsters, Deadmau5 didn't back down and just continued to troll them, even accusing her fans of being pro-suicide. Gaga eventually intervened: Though she didn't address Deadmau5 directly, she implored her fans (via Spin), "Monsters, please encourage one another to be accepting and tolerant on the internet. Any monster that is using hateful language and spreading negativity is not standing truly by me. I mean it. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Set an example. Do not defend me this way, focus on the music, that's where my focus is."
Jerry Seinfeld
In June 2010, Lady Gaga caused a stir when she sat in Jerry Seinfeld's box at a New York Mets game, where she rocked a flashy bra ... and a raised middle finger. Seinfeld wasn't impressed. "I'm not one of these all-publicity-is-good people," Seinfeld told WFAN (via ESPN). "People talk about you need exposure—you could die of exposure...I don't understand how this is good for her, but I'm sure she understands her milieu better than I ever could."
He added, somewhat jokingly, "This woman is a jerk. I hate her. I can't believe they put her in my box, which I paid for...You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we're living in now? It's pathetic. And why is she giving the finger? How old is the finger? How'd it even get to be the finger? Somewhere along the line somebody decided this is the bad finger." He also said of her name, "You take one 'A' off of that and you've got gag."
The comedian continued, "I don't know what these young people think or how they promote their careers...Wake me when it's over. Get an act. Rhinestone bikinis and giving people the finger. She is talented," he added. "I don't know why she's doing this stuff."
Piers Morgan
Piers Morgan attacked Lady Gaga's claims that she was a victim of sexual assault and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her experience. "Lady Gaga & Madonna have both made ALLEGATIONS of rape many years after the event. No police complaint, no charges, no court case," he tweeted, adding, "I fear [sexual assault has] become the latest celebrity accessory...I wouldn't automatically believe anything either Madonna or Lady Gaga claimed about their lives."
Gaga replied, "I've [worked] w/ our VP Joe Biden on helping educate people about why women don't report would love to share it w/ you some time...There is a mental health youth epidemic. if anyone in your family suffers from it, I pray they have more good days than bad. It has affected me & my whole family." She continued, "@piersmorgan would also love to talk with you about PTSD, that it's not just a 'military' disorder. There is a mental health youth epidemic."
Morgan responded, "I come from a big military family. It angers me when celebrities start claiming 'PTSD' about everything to promote themselves."
The pair then agreed to have a sitdown interview, to which Morgan said, "I'll press my meat suit." Gaga clapped back, "If you continue to shame me in the process of kindly agreeing to interview w/ u I'll happily do the interview with someone else."