Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga

“Stop feeding me bullshit. Tell me the truth.”—Lady Gaga, 2009“I hate the truth. I hate the truth so much I prefer a giant dose of bullshit any day over the truth.”—Lady Gaga, 2010In little over a year, Stefani Germanotta, a struggling performer in New York’s Lower East Side burlesque scene, has become the global demographic-smashing pop icon known as Lady Gaga. She is a once-in-a-decade artist, a gifted singer, composer, designer, and performance artist who mixes high and low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, authenticity with artifice. Who is Lady Gaga She is a twenty-four-year-old woman whose stage mantra—“I’m a free bitch!”—is the polar opposite of who she is offstage: isolated, insecure, and unable to be alone.