Lady Gaga: The pop icon – and film star – who is the architect of her own fame

With the Oscar buzz building over the singer’s turn in Ridley Scott’s ‘House of Gucci’, Roisin O’Connor charts the rise of a pop icon

Lady Gaga stars as Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s ‘House of Gucci’ (Fabio Lovino)

A viral clip from the House of Gucci trailer shows Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, sipping an espresso while out on the ski slopes. “I don’t consider myself a particularly ethical person,” she says. “But I am fair.” She taps her spoon against the cup – one, two, three times – in a truly menacing manner.

The artist born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was destined for drama in every sense of the word. Raised in Manhattan, New York, she’s been going the extra mile since she was in kindergarten where, for a school play, she made her own billy-goat horns out of tinfoil and a coat-hanger. Her idols were Madonna (of course), Grace Jones, Andy Warhol and David Bowie. “I strive to be a female Warhol,” she told The Guardian in 2009. “I want to make films and music, do photography and paint, one day, maybe. Make big, museum, art installations.”

She studied at the Collaborative Arts Project 21 in New York, via the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, before dropping out to pursue her music career. After working as a songwriter for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, she signed a deal in 2007 with Interscope and Akon’s label, KonLive Distribution. Later, reports would emerge that a Facebook page had been created by some of her Tisch classmates, titled: “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous.”