Lady Gaga Explains Why She Never Refuted Claims She Was a Man

Lady Gaga is finally addressing unsubstantiated rumors that followed her early in her music career.

“When I was in my early 20s there was a rumor that I was a man,” Gaga, 38, said during a conversation with Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates on his new Netflix series, What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates, which premiered Wednesday, September 18.

“I went all over the world — I traveled for tours, for promoting my records — and almost every interview I sat in, they [asked about it],” Gaga continued. “There was imagery on the internet that had been doctored. And they were like, ‘You know, there’s this rumor that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’”

“The reason I didn’t answer the question was because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie,” Gaga explained. “But I thought about, like, what about a kid that’s being accused of that, that would think a public figure like me would feel shame?”

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Since hitting the scene, Lady Gaga has become one of the most famous faces in pop music history. The New York City native released her debut single, “Just Dance,” in April 2008. As she continued to drop one chart-topping hit after another, from “Bad Romance” to “Born This Way” to “Million Reasons,” she quickly became […]

Gaga added, “I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor was not in the best interest of … I thought of the well-being of other people. So, in that case, I tried to be thought-provoking and disruptive in another way. I tried to use the misinformation to create another disruptive point.”

“People assume […] that my performance is what’s not real. But to me, that’s the most real thing that you’ll see about me.”

Lady Gaga talks about how she’s handled misinformation in her career in What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates. Now playing. pic.twitter.com/legQm24FEA

— Netflix (@netflix) September 18, 2024

In 2011, Anderson Cooper famously asked Gaga about rumors she had a “male appendage” in an interview for 60 Minutes. “Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?” Gaga responded. “Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care and neither do I.”

Earlier in September, the singer and actress also opened up about a mean-spirited Facebook group set up by her college classmates that went viral early in her career. The group was created while Gaga — real name Stefani Germanotta — was studying at New York University.

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Responding to a TikTok video that shared screenshots of the now-defunct group, which was called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous,” Gaga wrote, “Some people I went to college [with] made this way back when.”

“This is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down – gotta keep going,” added the Joker: Folie à Deux star.

Gaga clearly got the last laugh over her old classmates as she has won multiple accolades, including 13 Grammys and an Oscar.