Lady Gaga opens up about relationship with Bradley Cooper: ‘We made a love story’

Singer says chemistry between her and Cooper was ‘orchestrated as a performance’

Lady Gaga has addressed the dating rumours surrounding her and her A Star is Born co-star Bradley Cooper, after months of speculation about the pair’s relationship.

In a new interview with Oprah Winfrey for Elle’s December issue, the singer opened up about her and Cooper’s 2019 Oscar performance of Shallow, revealing that they wanted viewers to believe “we were in love”.

“Quite frankly, I think the press is very silly,” the 33-year-old said. “I mean, we made a love story. For me, as a performer and as an actress, of course we wanted people to believe that we were in love.”

“We wanted people to feel that love at the Oscars. We wanted it to go right through the lens of that camera and to every television that it was being watched on,” she added. “And we worked hard on it, we worked for days. We mapped the whole thing out - it was orchestrated as a performance.

“In truth, when we talked about it, we went: ‘Well, I guess we did a good job!’”

The Bad Romance singer also agreed when Winfrey revealed that Cooper had previously told her if him and Gaga had been in love, he wouldn’t have been able to make eye contact across the piano because of his “Catholic guilt”.

Lady Gaga and Cooper performed 'Shallow' at the 2019 Oscars (Getty)

“We were talking about all the rumours about you guys last year. He said if they had been true, he never would have been able to look you in the eye sitting at that piano,” Winfrey told Gaga. “He said his Catholic guilt would have never let him be able to look you in the eye at that piano.”

“Absolutely,” Gaga responded.

Later in the interview, the singer discussed the emotions she experienced playing the character Ally and the pain that she felt on Oscar night when she took home the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Shallow.

Recalling how a reporter had asked her what she saw when she looked at the Oscar trophy, Gaga told Winfrey that she said: “I see a lot of pain”.

“I was raped when I was 19 years old, repeatedly,” Gaga said. “I have been traumatised in a variety of ways by my career over the years from many different things, but I survived, and I’ve kept going.

“And when I looked at that Oscar, I saw pain. I don’t know that anyone understood it when I said it in the room, but I understood it.”

Despite suffering from PTSD and chronic pain as a result, Gaga wants her fans to know that she persevered, and they can too.

“I kept going, and that kid out there or even that adult out there who’s been through so much, I want them to know that they can keep going, and they can survive, and they can win their Oscar,” the songwriter said.