Lady Gaga – Top 10 Controversies

Burlesque, breast milk and the meat dress – all part of "The Fame" for the world's most outrageous popstar.

Lady Gaga
One of the many outlandish outfits for which Lady Gaga is famed Credit: Photo: REX FEATURES

Was it art? A statement against oppression? Or just downright disgusting? Regardless, Gaga's now infamous appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing a Franc Fernandez-designed outfit comprising the flesh of dead animals is surely her greatest controversy to date.

Born This Way

Tottering around in 8-inch heels and with little more than tit-tape and a triangle to cover your modesty may be one thing, but Gaga's latest "creation" is bizarre in the extreme. The cover for her new album, Born This Way, sees Gaga's snarling head and shoulders morphed into the frame of a motorbike. Cue endless gags about "polishing the undercarriage" on the forums.

Burlesque

Last year Gaga told The Telegraph's rock critic Neil McCormick that before she hit the big time, burlesque dancing was a chief source of income: "I was onstage in a thong, with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it, lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex." All of which sounds remarkably familiar (minus the Black Sabbath)...

Video nasties

Ever-obsessed with the power of visual stimulants, Gaga has come under criticism for the explicit – and targeted – nature of several videos. Notable examples include the nudity-fuelled, borderline masochistic take on an all female prison in Telephone, and the mix of sexual and Catholic imagery – including Gaga sucking on rosary beads – in Alejandro.

Ex-boyfriend lawsuit

Even pop megastars can't shake off those pesky exes. When her former boyfriend, business partner and producer Rob Fusari sued the platinum provocateur for $30.5 million in 2010, claiming he named her and framed her style, the Gaga camp kept conspicuously quiet. They later reached a settlement out of court. Hmmm.

Breast milk ice-cream

So extensive is the long-arm of Gaga's infamy, others seem happy to take up the cause. Take Covent Garden ice cream parlour The Icecreamists, for example. Earlier this year they debuted a new flavour, "Baby Gaga", which mixed vanilla pods, lemon and, er, breast milk. Gaga gagged – and threatened legal action.

She wears it well

Long before the meat dress, Gaga's career had already been punctuated by a series of outlandish outfits. Favourites include the "Red Riding Hood", the "lion's mane/birdsnest", and the "bubble bath".

Bisexuality

In itself neither controversial (nor exactly unexpected), Gaga's well-documented bisexuality – of which her hit song Poker Face is reputedly about – still apparently managed to ruffle the feathers of a few ex-boyfriends: "The fact that I'm into women, they're all intimidated by it. It makes them uncomfortable. They're like, 'I don't need to have a threesome. I'm happy with just you'."

Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame

Having left her indelible mark on the worlds of fashion and pop, Gaga is now so ubiquitous across all facets of popular culture and public consciousness that University of South Carolina professor Mathieu Deflem has launched a course, Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame, to explore her stardom in academic terms.

Judas song

Not content with the brouhaha caused by the Alejandro video, Gaga's latest swipe at the church is the song Judas, in which she proclaims her love for the treacherous apostle who betrayed Jesus. The punchline? The track has been leaked just days before the Easter weekend. Coincidence, we think not.