Lady Gaga, international pop star notorious for her bizarre outfits and performances, may not be happy she was born this way after all.
In fact, as investigative reporter Ian Halperin told the Daily Mail, the diva barely ate for weeks at a time while on tour and spent hours staring at her body in a mirror, critiquing all of its flaws.
“The girl known as Stefi to her friends and family has all but disappeared,” explains Halperin in his upcoming biography of Gaga. “She’s morphed into this caricature called Lady Gaga, who isn’t even a real person.”
Back in May, the singer confessed to Rolling Stone, “When I am not onstage I feel dead … I don’t feel alive unless I’m performing, and that’s just the way I was born.”
Behind the over-the-top costumes and perfectly applied make-up are serious health problems, says Halperin. Gaga’s elaborate wigs and make-up cover up her hair loss and red blotches.
The pop star is reportedly afflicted by lupus, an auto-immune condition that attacks the body’s tissue. Gaga herself released a statement, saying she tested “borderline positive” but shows no symptoms of the disease.
The singer has also been frank about her drug use, explaining she did “bags and bags of cocaine” while listening to The Cure, a band. (Elizabeth Smart lands ABC News spot)
She stopped using the drug “because I was panicking more on the drugs than I was sober.”
According to Halperin, however, her abuse of narcotics is far more extensive than she lets on. “From heroin to cocaine and ecstasy, her friends say that she has done every drug conceivable,” he says. “You name it, she has done it.”
Lady Gaga most recently appeared in Singapore wearing a tall neon cone head wig and heelless platform shoes to accept a plaque from Sandy Monteiro, president of the Universal Music Group International, for selling an extraordinary number of albums.