Lady GaGa: LSD and coke drove me Gaga..

By Douglas Wight, 07/02/2010
WACKY pop queen Lady Gaga has revealed she was so addicted to cocaine she believed it would KILL her.

The outrageous pop diva - who stole the show at last week's Grammys - told how she would lock herself in her room snorting "bags and bags" of the drug to get inspiration for her music.

She also confessed that she got dangerously high on LSD as she strove to emulate her pop heroes.

But Gaga, 23 - real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - claims she was eventually saved... by a dead auntie whose ghost lives inside her.

PHOTOS: Lady GaGa before she went Gaga

"I thought I was gonna die," she says in an explosive new biography. "I wanted to BE the artists I loved, like Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol - and I thought the only way to do it was to live the lifestyle.

"But then I realised my father's sister Joanne, who'd died at 19, had instilled her spirit in me. She was a painter and a poet - and I had a spiritual vision I had to finish her business."

Bisexual Gaga also reveals how she STRIPPED on stage during a song as an unknown to get a bored audience to notice her.

And she served MEATBALLS to a lover in only KNICKERS and STILETTOS to turn him on.

But the oddball star - who won two Grammys last week and is nominated for three Brit Awards this month - nearly became a drugs statistic as she tried to make it as a singer.

The teenage musical prodigy dropped out of her New York performing arts school at 20 and descended into a nightmare world. She reveals: "My cocaine soundtrack was always the Cure. I would lock myself in my room and listen to Never Enough on repeat while I did bags and bags of cocaine.

"It was about being an artist. I wasn't a lazy addict. I would make demo tapes and send them around. At the time I didn't think there was anything wrong with me, until my friends said, 'Are you doing this alone?' Um, yes. Me and my mirror."

Gaga also started dropping acid and says one of her scariest LSD trips left her convinced she had met Radiohead rocker Thom Yorke.

Strip

Her behaviour became increasingly erratic. One night, while striving for her big break, she caused a stir in a New York's club with what would become her trademark - an impromptu strip on stage.

Gaga got so fed up at everyone talking through a song she ripped off her skirt and shirt and sat at the piano in only a bra, pants, fishnet stockings and white shoes. Everybody stared.

"That's when I made a real decision about the kind of pop artist I wanted to be," she says.

Soon Stefani found her stage name when record producer Rob Fusari told her she reminded him of Freddie Mercury. A mis-typed text from Rob said Lady Gaga instead of Radio GaGa - and a star was born.

By then she'd also met her first big love, rocker Luc Carl. She often cooked dinner for him semi-naked. "He used to say 'Baby, you're so sexy!' she says. "And I'd be like, 'have some meatballs'. I'm girl crazy too. I love men, I love women and I love sex."

But her love of drugs ended her relationship with Luc as she continued to cane it - using her mind-bending experiences to inspire her stage performances.

She was even arrested at one Chicago gig for revealing too much flesh on stage. "There's a huge festival with people doing cocaine and marijuana and he's busting me?" she recalls incredulously.

Finally Gaga moved to LA in 2008 and put together multi-million selling debut album The Fame which spawned three chart-topping singles, including Just Dance and Poker Face.

But she still found little success with men who couldn't handle her wildness. LA model Speed was dumped after he spotted her getting it on with Swedish male triplets on a sofa during a video shoot for single Paparazzi. A source says: "He started screaming at her on set." Unsurprisingly they split.

"I'm a disaster with men," says the beauty who was teased for being a lesbian at the strict Manhattan convent where she was educated. "But I still believe I'm super-sexy."

Her closest companion remains her dead aunt - and she dedicated last year's Fame Ball tour to her. "I never met her - but she's been one of the most important figures in my life."

PHOTOS: Lady GaGa before she went Gaga

HELIA Phoenix, 2010. Extracted from LADY GAGA: Just Dance - The Biography by Helia Phoenix, published by Orion on February 18, price £14.99. To buy it for £13.49 (with free P&P) call 0845 271 2137 or visit notwbookshop.co.uk.

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