Lady Gaga has opened up about why she never bothered to clear up rumours circulating earlier in her career that she was a man. In an interview with Anderson Cooper in 2011, the Joker: Folie à Deux star was asked: “There was a rumour that you had a male appendage, that you were a hermaphrodite ..
. A lot of artists would have put out some sort of statement saying ‘This is absolutely not true’, but you have fun with it.” The “Born This Way” singer responded: “Maybe I do.
Would it be so terrible? 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.” Now, in an appearance on Netflix ’s What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates , Gaga has explained why she chose not to dispel the rumours. “When I was in my early 20s there was a rumour that I was a man,” Lady Gaga told Gates.
“I went all over the world. I travelled for tours and for promoting my records and almost every interview I sat in – there was this imagery on the internet that had been doctored – they were like, ‘There’s rumours that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’” Gaga, a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community , said the rumours didn’t make her feel like a “victim”, and she didn’t want to pass on any “shame” to a child being accused of the same.
“The reason why I didn’t answer the question is because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie and I thought: Wha.