In little over a year, Stefani Germanotta, a struggling performer in New York' s Lower East Side burlesque scene, became the global pop icon Lady Gaga. She is a once-in-a-decade artist, a gifted singer, composer, designer, and performance artist who mixes high and low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, authenticity with artifice. Who is Lady Gaga? A 24-year-old woman whose stage persona is the polar opposite of who she is offstage: isolated, insecure, and unable to be alone. An outré artist who wanted to be a sensitive singer-songwriter. A woman who says no man can ever compete with her career, but who still isn't over the ex-boyfriend who said she was too ambitious. She claims not to care what people think, but spends her downtime online, reading what people have to say about her. Based on over fifty original interviews with friends, employees, rivals, and music industry veterans, here is the first in-depth biography of this phenomenon.--From publisher description.