10 Revelations from Lady Gaga's Intimate New Documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two
No wigs, no meat dresses — just the pop star at her most personal.
Lady Gaga allowed cameras into some of her most intimate spaces for a year for the new Netflix documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two (which premieres on September 22), but she hasn’t brought herself to actually watch it yet.
“I have seen a few short clips of the documentary, but I decided not to watch it all the way through, or most of it, for that matter, because I can’t be objective about myself,” she said in a clip posted to her Instagram feed. “So you’ll see it before I do.”
Gaga, as seen in her revealing Netflix doc.
Gaga takes fans inside her life, both the good and the bad, in her revealing doc.
Lady Gaga shares more than she ever has before in Gaga: Five Foot Two, and without spoiling it all, here are some of the most surprising revelations:
1. She is in real, terrifying pain.
Lady Gaga suffers from chronic pain all over her body due to fibromyalgia, and it’s gut-wrenching to watch masseuses try to tame the angry muscles in her face and to listen to her describe the spasms she often feels from head to toe.
“It feels like there’s a rope from my first toe all the way up my leg and then around my first rib and my shoulder and then my neck and head, jaw. My f***ing face hurts.”
2. She worries that she might not be able to have a child.
Her chronic pain is so severe that she can’t picture what childbirth will be like, and doesn’t know if she can even have a baby. “I know I can get pregnant,” she reveals, but she’s been chasing extreme hip pain for five years and doesn’t know what the consequences would be.
3. She smokes clove cigars.
She’s often seen in Gaga: Five Foot Two smoking small, brown clove cigars, which pals like Elton John and Tony Bennett have begged her to quit.
4. Madonna disappoints her
What bothers Gaga most about what she perceives as Madonna’s negative opinion of her is that the Material Girl hasn’t said anything straight to her.
“I admired her always and I still admire her no matter what she might think of me,” she says, puffing on a clove. “The only thing that really bothers me is that, I’m Italian and from New York and if I’ve got a f***ing problem with you, I’m going to tell you to your face. No matter how much respect I have for her as a performer, I could never wrap my head around the fact that she wouldn’t look me in the eye and tell me I was reductive.”
5. She really, really loves her fans (no, really).
Mother Monster has always been known to be very kind to her fans, including ordering them pizza to apologize for a canceled show. But when you see her burst into tears while hugging a fan named Marlene whom she surprised as part of a radio station promotion, you won’t question just how much she cares.
6. Don’t expect to see another meat dress.
Her Joanne album is about presenting the real artist stripped down, and it’s given her confidence to continue to be herself.
“I don’t need to have a million wigs on and all that sh** to make a statement,” she says to her design director, Brandon Maxwell. “I know that we want to elevate everything, I’m trying to elevate everything but I can’t elevate it to a point where I become Lady Gaga again. Yeah, because then it’s like, why did I make this record?”
7. Big career successes are correlated with personal losses.
“I’m always at a shoot with some fucking great news, and my love life’s imploded,” she laments to Maxwell. She wants to make music and make people happy while also having a family, but she feels like she has never been able to make it all work.
“It’s a sad day when I’m doing the Super Bowl and, like, I’m so excited to do it but I can’t help but realize that when I sold 10 million records, I lost Matt [Williams],” she says. “I sold 30 million, I lose Luc [Carl]. I get the movie [A Star Is Born], I lose Taylor [Kinney]. It’s like a turnover. This is the third time I’ve had my heart broken like this."
8. She knows how to use the self-checkout at the store.
Walmart customers were pretty surprised to see her scanning her own items — stars, they’re just like us!
9. She still worries about the smallest details in a show.
For real — and you’ll believe it when you see her talk about how important her jacket lining is to nailing her Super Bowl halftime show in Houston.
10. The idea of her Super Bowl performance made her sad at first.
Gaga considers her halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl to be a pinnacle in her career, and it was a heavy realization.
“This is the one, it’s almost like a little bit sad,” she says to Maxwell, who argued the point. “No, it doesn’t get bigger than this,” she insists, “so what do I do after this?”
“Everything!” Maxwell says. “You’re about to see your whole world explode at 9pm tonight. Your album’s already all number one around the world. You’ll be in stadiums for the rest of your life.”
After his pep talk, she went out and killed her performance. The smile on her face as she hugged her loved ones after said that it was all worth it.
