Pod Insights DISGRACELAND Lady Gaga (Pt.1): How She Manipulated the Conspiracy Theorists on Her Way to Becoming The Biggest Pop Star on the Planet About this episode Lady Gaga not only manipulated her past, she manipulated the media into propping her up on her way to becoming one of the biggest stars in the world. She also toyed with conspiracy theorists, using their fervent chatter to boost her mythology. From the Intersex theory to Lina Morgana, we get into all of it in this part one episode on Lady Gaga.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is Exactly Right.
0:13 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
0:44 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle. Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. It's back by popular demand.
1:24 Jake Brennan? This five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of Disgrace Land along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners Wyscrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage. Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/truocrime to secure your spot. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.
2:22 Jake Brennan? This is a story about one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. A Grammy-winning, chart-topping, staggeringly-successful musician. An artist who refuses to be easily defined. A shape-shifting, influential, five-tool, multi-hyphenate icon. A singer, a songwriter, an actor, an endlessly-compelling superstar with legions of followers from all over the world. She's more than mainstream, she is the mainstream. Yet, she's the voice of the marginalized, the alienated, the isolated of freaks and monsters everywhere. And she inspires more than just fandom and obsession.
3:06 Jake Brennan? She's compelled countless conspiracy theorists whose claims about her are as absurd as they are horrifying. She's a man, she's a murderer. Are these claims true? And if not, why won't they go away? What is it about this artist that drives these persistent conspiracies? The artist I'm talking about is, of course, Lady Gaga. An artist who, yes, makes great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Fishnets on Delancy," MK1.
3:50 Jake Brennan? I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "So What?" by Pink. And why would I play you that specific slice of dirt-bike dating cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number-one song in America on October 4, 2008. And that was the day Lady Gaga's friend and musical collaborator, Lina Morgana, died. An event that kicked off one of the wildest, darkest rumors in modern music history.
4:23 Jake Brennan? On this episode: Influencer vs. Shapeshifter, Icon of Sex or Intersex, Borrowed or Stolen Identity, Suicide or Murder, Illuminati or Catholic Schoolgirl Gone Wrong: The Lady Gaga Story You Didn’t Know You Needed. I’m Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
4:59 Jake Brennan? Most people spend hours perfecting the outfits they’re going to wear to gain entrance into exclusive nightclubs. The opposite is true if one seeks admission to Berlin’s Lab Oratory, part of the notorious Bergen nightclub complex, which opens at 11:59 PM Friday evening and closes around 9:00 AM Monday morning. Bergen’s doormen are as selective as Studio 54’s notorious Mark Bennecke once was, but twice as cruel. At Bergen, outrageous outfits are not encouraged. It’s best to rock your simplest jeans and t-shirt combo and act like you don’t care, which of course you very much do.
5:41 Jake Brennan? The doorman’s harsh, East German stare betrays nothing. His face is blank as death and bleak like a Berlin morning. Though your heart is in your throat, you play it cool. You’re not drunk, you’re not obviously high, you haven’t spoken a word while in line, so the doorman has no idea that you don’t speak German. He gives you a slow once-over with Gestapo-like suspicion and steps aside, clearing a free path to the heavy industrial door covered in graffiti. You return his stare with your own blankness and proceed through the door, which somehow opens on its own before you get to it.
6:22 Jake Brennan? Inside this mammoth, fourth-story, brick-and-mortar tribute to Sodom and Gomorrah, you're surrounded by a blackness only penetrated in miniscule moments by brief bursts of strobing white light. The pulsing house music pummels you. Somehow, it's both muffled and suffocatingly loud. Your eardrums hollow out, and the walls of your stomach vibrate. You wonder if this is what Havana Syndrome feels like. The thought disappears, and so does the twinge of nausea, as your heart rate quickens with anticipation while you pass through Burgayne's labyrinth of long, winding hallways beneath forty-foot ceilings. You walk past secret
7:03 Jake Brennan? passageways to even more secret rooms, where you and others will partake in acts that, decades ago, were they not kept secret, would have resulted in harsh societal condemnation, persecution, jail, violence, and even death. You press on, up countless staircases, slipping through various entrances into a mazework of club settings. You wonder how you'll describe this, the Burgayne nightclub complex, to your friends. Imagine if Trent Reznor designed a music and dance mall dedicated to debauchery. And that's about the best you can come up with, as you rub shoulders with the like-minded hedonists from all over the globe. Different countries, different backgrounds, with different looks and different sexual orientations,
7:48 Jake Brennan? though mostly gay, and each of them seeking a different version of what you seek: the freedom to be who you truly are, and to align your true identity with your most honest sexual desires. The word "freak" seems pejorative, but that's not how you see it. You view the word the same as the composer of the Stuart Price remix that's blasting across the Burgayne dance floor, the same way that that composer views the word "freak," as a badge of honor. And that composer, of course, is not only your favorite pop star, she's your champion, your icon. You're one of her little monsters, and she's your "mother monster," one of the biggest stars of the 21st century: Lady Gaga.
8:36 Jake Brennan? Who was, just as you were, born this way. An artist who told the world that she always felt like a freak. An artist who took her awkward feelings of high school alienation and isolation and used them as fuel. Fuel to empower her and her millions of fans, you included. She empowered all of you to embrace your true identities and to reclaim the word freak. And with that reclamation comes liberation, freedom. And so here you are, inside the Bourgaine nightclub complex, outside the entryway to the Lab Oratory. The club stylizes its name as Lab dot Oratory, a semi-clever take on the word laboratory,
9:21 Jake Brennan? thus my kind of strange pronunciation of the club's name. And Lab Oratory isn't just any club. It's a sex club with rules. Lab Oratory is for men only on most nights, and the club's motto is, "Play safe, dress dirty." Before one can enter, one must make a prerequisite stop in the locker room. You know the drill. Lab Oratory advertisements are clear. There's a strict dress code: fully naked, shoes only. Under the locker room's fluorescent lights, you strip down, stuff your clothes in a plastic bag, and throw the bag into a locker. Eagerly, you make your way into Lab Oratory,
10:04 Jake Brennan? again, fully naked, except for your sneakers. The club's flyers prohibit not only clothing, but also cologne, and you immediately understand why. The smell hits you almost as hard as the music. In a word, the club smells like men. A raunchy, exhilarating mix of pheromones, sex, and the sweet scent of vodka, which famously is odorless until it passes through one's sweat pores.
10:34 Jake Brennan? All of it fills the air and your nostrils. And with the music, you're already enthralled before your brain even begins to register what your eyes are seeing. Black and white sexual psychedelia, a dom doom dance floor jammed with different body types, all nude, all sharing the same space. Strangers clinging to some type of communal intimacy. And you now know that you'll never be able to explain this. It's something that can only be felt. This is something far too experiential, like love or faith, something that words too often fail to describe. Gas masks hang from the wall. Men speak to you with gestures, signals, not words. Words are no good here.
11:19 Jake Brennan? The music is too loud and the shared frequency that everyone is plugged into makes speaking unnecessary. You all want the same thing. Not sex. Freedom. And everyone in this club understands what that means. This isn't the 1970s. This isn't New York's meatpacking district. Floor shows and spectacle fisting are outre. This is the 21st century. And though lab oratory is primal, and though nearly every kink is allowed, this space is also profoundly respectful. To repeat, the so-called freak is celebrated. And with this respect comes the type of tenderness that would otherwise be absent from a nightclub
12:02 Jake Brennan? full of naked men dancing and fucking to the sounds of Lady Gaga house mixes. After all, lab oratory is the setting for one of the most notorious chapters of what has become the myth of Lady Gaga. It's the place where one of the most unsettling and controversial conspiracy theories surrounding the pop star would be finally put to bed.
12:48 Speaker 01 Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's Small Business Line of Credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
13:19 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle. All right, guys, I got something really cool for y'all. Come cruise the Caribbean with yours truly and some other great podcasters as part of The Virgin Voyage's True Crime Voyage. Yes, we are going on a cruise together, discos.
14:03 Jake Brennan? You, me, Zeph, and a whole ship full of true crime fans. Now, Zeph and I are going to be taping a live version of DisgraceLand, one of our after-party episodes. And there's going to be some other great podcasters doing the same thing. The folks from Wisecrack, you guys know about Wisecrack, 2026's Podcast of the Year, and be award winners and iHeart Award winner for Best True Crime Podcast. Also, the folks from Exactly Right's Buried Bones will be on board doing their thing as well. So if you want a live true crime DisgraceLand experience and a party to go along with it, live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive programming on a one-of-a-kind voyage, well, then you're going to make your plans right now.
14:47 Jake Brennan? For the Virgin Voyages True Crime Voyage, happening March 20th, 2027. March 20th, 2027. That's right, we are departing from Miami on that day and sailing to Grand Turk and the Beach Club in Bimini. Come hang with me, Zeth, your fellow discos and true crime fans, along with the hosts from Buried Bones and Wisecrack this coming March, March 20th, 2027. Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/trucrime to secure your spot.
15:20 Jake Brennan? Ever since Lady Gaga burst into mainstream public consciousness in 2008, conflicting information about who she was and where she came from has persisted. To hear Gaga tell it, back then, anyway, the young 23-year-old pop star described herself to interviewers as having grown up as an outsider, a quote-unquote "Goth girl with hair dyed black," equally obsessed with David Bowie and Judy Garland. Gaga strategically offered other bits from her past, too, like the fact that before she became a global sensation, selling out stadiums in countries all over the world, she worked a pole on New York's Lower East Side as a burlesque dancer,
16:01 Jake Brennan? or that Gaga, like many feral denizens of the LES back in the mid-ots, from The Strokes to Ryan Adams, knew exactly what it meant when a fellow bar hop whispered, "Meet me in the bathroom." These biographical sketches of Lady Gaga's past doled out in the many interviews she gave as her career began to skyrocket are not false, but they do color only between the lines of a carefully-designed, artist-driven creation myth. It's an origin story that leaves out a lot, and as it pertains to Gaga's high school years, presents an almost, and I say the word "almost" very intentionally, an almost false depiction of who she was.
16:44 Jake Brennan? Do I think that we should fault Lady Gaga for this? Absolutely not. Most of the best artists, from Bob Dylan to Lou Reed to Jack White, Bowie, and too many others to name, the best artists painstakingly fueled their own myths by carefully cultivating their origin stories. Bob Dylan wasn't raised by Carney Barkers, and Lou Reed didn't go to Harvard, Jack White wasn't Meg White's brother, David Bowie didn't fall to earth, and Lady Gaga wasn't born with a penis. More on that when we return to lab oratory in a moment. But first, let's quickly look at who Lady Gaga was before she was Lady Gaga.
17:22 Jake Brennan? She was Stephanie Germanata, and she grew up rich on New York's Upper West Side. You know the guest wifi you use to get onto the internet with your computer in hotels? The one that's literally called "guest wifi"? Her dad, Joe Germanata, invented that. He also invented Stephanie Germanata, aka Lady Gaga. Joe and his wife raised their daughter Catholic, sending her to a prestigious private school, the exclusive all-girls Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan. The school is set in a converted mansion. And if you want an idea of what type of exclusivity we're talking about, Convent of the Sacred Heart's past students include Anderson Cooper's mother,
18:06 Jake Brennan? Gloria Vanderbilt, heiress to the Vanderbilt fortune, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, and both Paris and Nikki Hilton. I didn't attend Catholic school, but I imagine it's a fairly stuffy experience. I can see how someone like Lady Gaga might describe her experience there as that of an outsider, being made to feel like a "freak." But former classmates, in photos of Stephanie Germanata's school days, which one can now find on the internet, they all paint a different picture of her school days. Classmates describe her as "social, involved, even outgoing." Photos reveal a smiling, fresh-faced, enthusiastic student
18:49 Jake Brennan? wearing her school uniform to code and eagerly participating in mass and in student plays and musicals. To this day, Lady Gaga remains close with a number of her high school classmates. Her loyalty to her friends is surpassed only by her loyalty to her family, where Gaga has made no secret about the fact that despite being one of the biggest stars on the planet, she still often returns to her parents' three-story duplex to surround herself with their love and the familiar comforts of her childhood home. All of this is at odds with how Gaga has described herself. We're all very aware of how 90s and early aughts outsiders and freaks looked and behaved.
19:31 Jake Brennan? They were seldom seen smiling in yearbook photos with other students, eagerly attending Catholic mass, ambitiously going for lead roles in school plays, or heading home on weekends to hang with their parents after becoming rock stars. Their histories look quite different, actually. Late 90s and early aughts outsiders were infrequently, if ever, pictured in candid moments in their yearbooks, smiling. Real music-driven outsiders didn't eagerly attend anything except punk and DIY shows, never mind Catholic mass. And they didn't go out for school plays. And God willing, they ever achieved rock star status, the last place they were going to go as a young 20-something was home to mommy and daddy on the weekend.
20:14 Jake Brennan? But, all of this said, I don't think Lady Gaga was lying about feeling like an outsider, despite the person we now know that she was pre-fame. Because Lady Gaga had something that 99% of her fellow humans don't have: a blinding, almost suffocating ambition to be the biggest star on the planet. From an early age, she was absolutely driven to make it as a performer, specifically as a singer and songwriter. You can see it in those pictures from Sacred Heart. And you can see it in those embarrassing videos of Stephanie Germanata from her NYU days back in the early 2000s onstage at the bitter end.
20:58 Jake Brennan? About as uncool a New York venue as you could find at the time, fighting her way through Led Zeppelin covers to a near-empty room with a half-ass hippie band backing her up. And you can see it in later photos of a reinvented Lady Gaga from her Lower East Side days, working the bars on Ludlow and Delancey for every ounce of credibility she could scrounge in leotards and go-go boots during a time when she was clawing her way toward a major-label record deal. Stephanie Germanotta wasn't going to be denied. If you spoke to those who have known Lady Gaga for a long time, they'd all tell you that this ambition was always there. She was always hustling. She worked her way into a development deal with a top-notch producer.
21:41 Jake Brennan? She was writing, demoing, constantly chasing down live gigs, hanging out at the right places, showing up at the right parties, seeking out the right people to be seen with, and sleeping with the hottest bartender on the Lower East Side. A long-haired metalhead named Luke, because of course he was, and she was scouring the trendy digital blog pages of last night's party and the Cobra Snake for pictures of herself from the night before. For Lady Gaga, the hustle never stopped. She lived, worked, slept, and dreamed hustle. Everything she did, including engaging in her favorite topic of conversation, herself was all about making it. This type of ambition isn't only blinding, it's isolating.
22:24 Jake Brennan? When you orient your life around a goal with the type of drive that causes you to behave differently than anyone else you know and come in contact with, well, you're by definition alienating yourself. So, was Lady Gaga an outsider back in her formative years? Yes, absolutely she was. She just invented an origin story her audience could better relate to, and that speaks to her genius. But what about her penis, you ask? Oh yeah, right. Back to the lab oratory in Berlin. When Lady Gaga and her entourage entered the Bourgogne nightclub complex in 2010, Stephanie Germanotta's identity had long since been supplanted by the mother monster,
23:08 Jake Brennan? the Gaga-loo, gags, Gaga, Lady Gaga, the new queen of pop. By 2010, Lady Gaga was caught in a hurricane of unprecedented success for a new artist. I could fill the entirety of this podcast giving examples of just how staggeringly successful Gaga had become by 2010, only three years into her professional career. But I'm not going to do that. After releasing her debut album, The Fame, in 2008, the woman didn't just have hit singles, she had the biggest selling singles of the year. She captivated the world with her performance at the 52nd Grammy Awards, drew more than a few comparisons to mid-career Madonna, chief among them by pissing off the Catholics
23:52 Jake Brennan? with her song Alejandro, which the Catholic League deemed blasphemous. And then she won three Grammys, countless MTV Video Music Awards, topped critics lists in Rolling Stone, seemingly everywhere else, and by the end of 2010, was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She also became the first person ever to achieve a billion views on YouTube for her Bad Romance video. But it was her Glastonbury performance in 2009 that really stoked the imaginations of the conspiracy theorists. The show was a triumph. It cemented Lady Gaga on the world stage.
24:34 Jake Brennan? The audience simply could not get enough of Gaga, not just her performance, but her personality. They ate, as they say, from the palm of her hand. And in the end, Lady Gaga sent them away by shooting flames out of her nipples, literally, well, literally out of her bra, anyway. But shortly thereafter, videos and photos from the performance began circulating online. Videos and photos that online sleuths claimed showed a bulge beneath Gaga's skirt, a bulge that supposedly proved that Lady Gaga was intersex.
25:13 Jake Brennan? Quotes, fake quotes, that is, from Gaga supposedly confirmed that she had both male and female genitalia. They went viral instantly. Gaga refused to deny the claims. Her management denied them for her, which, given the fact that her father is part of her management team, you can understand why, but still Gaga said nothing on the subject. In the corner of the internet that is concerned with all things Gaga was flooded with altered imagery exaggerating the bulge in her crotch. Silly? Yes, absolutely. But it's astonishing how many people fell for this ridiculousness and how persistent this rumor was, until Gaga visited lab oratory with her entourage.
26:00 Jake Brennan? After visiting lab oratory, Gaga, her security, a few friends, her makeup artists, and the British journalist Caitlin Moran from The Times of London, filled the dance floor of another Bourgogne complex nightclub, this one with its own set of sex swings, bathtubs, and beds. According to Moran, Gaga was unlucky in love this evening despite her pop star status. The gay clientele were happy to host, but Gaga apparently struck out in her attempts to get laid. That whole not having a penis thing being an issue and all, but that's not the proof that should have finally dispelled the intersex rumor. After ditching her McQueen-designed cloak and braving the bar by herself wearing just
26:44 Jake Brennan? her fishnets, panties, and a bra, Gaga invited Caitlin Moran into the Bourgogne club's bathroom for what Moran thought would be an opportunity to do blow with her favorite pop star, but which turned out to instead be an extended girl hang, whereupon the reporter witnessed with her own two eyes Lady Gaga squat on the toilet and relieve herself through her fishnets. And so, irrefutable proof of Lady Gaga's lack of male genitalia was famously published by Caitlin Moran in The Times. But of course, the conspiracy theorists wouldn't accept it. A year later, in a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper no less, Gaga wondered aloud
27:29 Jake Brennan? why she should "waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis. My fans don't care, and neither do I." The conspiracy theorists went wild with this non-denial. Head over to Reddit and you'll find that they still haven't let go of it. And to think, the whole "Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite" thing is only the third most popular conspiracy theory surrounding this global pop star.
28:07 Speaker 01 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
28:38 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle. All right, guys, I got something really cool for y'all. Come cruise the Caribbean with yours truly and some other great podcasters as part of The Virgin Voyage's True Crime Voyage. Yes, we are going on a cruise together, discos,
29:22 Jake Brennan? you, me, Zeph, and a whole ship full of true crime fans. Now, Zeph and I are going to be taping a live version of Disgrace Land, one of our after-party episodes. And there's going to be some other great podcasters doing the same thing. The folks from Wise Crack, you guys know about Wise Crack, 2026's Podcast of the Year, Ambi Award winner and iHeart Award winner for Best True Crime Podcast. Also, the folks from Exactly Right's Buried Bones will be on board doing their thing as well. So if you want a live true crime Disgrace Land experience and a party to go along with it, live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet and greets, and immersive programming on a one-of-a-kind voyage, well, then you're going to make your plans right now
30:06 Jake Brennan? for The Virgin Voyage's True Crime Voyage, happening March 20, 2027. March 20, 2027.
30:15 Jake Brennan? And that's right, we are departing from Miami on that day and sailing to Grand Turk and the Beach Club in Bimini. Come hang with me, Zeth, your fellow discos and true crime fans, along with the hosts from Buried Bones and Wisecrack this coming March, March 20th, 2027. Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot.
30:39 Jake Brennan? Lady Gaga wasn't the least bit phased about anonymous internet trolls questioning her physiology online. But having her home invaded, that was truly horrifying.
30:52 Jake Brennan? Flashback, 2006, New York's Lower East Side. The shower felt good on her body, despite the fact that it, like most of the utilities in Lady Gaga's 176 Stanton Street apartment, barely worked half the time. Unlike her, Stephanie Germanata worked all the time. At least it seemed that way. Even when she wasn't working, she was looking for work, which in itself was its own kind of work. Her friend, Lady Starlight, danced burlesque at the Slipper Room on Orchard and Stanton, close by Stephanie's apartment. Burlesque dancers are often confused
31:33 Jake Brennan? with strippers, but the difference between the two is significant. The point of burlesque is to tease and entertain, to tell a story through the dancing onstage. The removal of clothing typically never gets fully nude. The point of stripping, or pole dancing, is often sex. Strippers, depending on local laws, remove as much clothing as possible, usually until they're fully nude, and they entice clients into back rooms for paid private shows, and often more. But like stripping, burlesque dancing is hard work. More often than not, the dancers work onstage in heels. It's a real workout, and it's intense, which
32:14 Jake Brennan? is not to suggest that, though burlesque is considered more of an art form than stripping, the creeps aren't part of the gig. They are. And the sexual harassment can be just as stressful as the physical fatigue. None of this stopped Stephanie Germanotta from pushing Lady Starlight to get her an audition as a burlesque dancer at the Slipper Room. Stephanie needed the money, and perhaps the experience as well. These were the days before Stephanie became Lady Gaga. These were the formative years. Stephanie was still defining herself as an artist. She was signed to a development deal with Rob Fusari, a successful producer who'd worked previously with Destiny's Child and Will Smith. This guaranteed Stephanie precisely nothing, however.
32:59 Jake Brennan? She had no record deal, not yet, so every bit of her energy was focused on creating a demo with Fusari that would net her one. The fact that she was involved in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with a producer only made this time in her life more messy. Stephanie made Lady Starlight proud. She nailed her Slipper Room audition, and soon the pair had their own show: the New York Street Revival in Trash Dance. The lights in the Slipper Room fade to black. The audience, a mix of downtown hipsters and bridge-and-tunnel herbs, all of them sipping
33:40 Jake Brennan? cheap, overpriced beer and wine and watered-down cocktails, eagerly awaits the show. And then... Queen's Radio Gaga explodes from the speakers. And there she is, a dancer like they've never seen. Five foot two, but commanding nonetheless. Her hair is black, chopped bangs, teased out over her shoulders. She's in fishnets and panties and grinding to Queen, which transitions effortlessly into a song the audience doesn't recognize but vibes with nonetheless. It's one of Stephanie's originals, "Electric Kiss."
34:23 Jake Brennan? As the show progresses, Stephanie strips down to just her panties and pasties. And the show is Trey rock and roll, which is to also say, it's dirty and slutty. And the audience is enthralled. The club's owner is happy, but he knows what's coming. And that would be jealousy. The other girls aren't going to stand for this much attention being heaped upon one dancer. The discord is going to lead to changes. And he knows he'll soon have to fire Stephanie, whose star is clearly too big for the slipper room. Which he does.
35:00 Jake Brennan? Traipsing home through the grime of the Lower East Side, Stephanie, with her big 80s metal hair and leotard and go-go boots, is gawked at and mocked by some neighborhood boys who mistakenly take her for a sex worker. She takes it in stride, unlocking her Stanton Street apartment building door to head in for a much-needed shower.
35:21 Jake Brennan? And the water is hot. The steam is thick. Her body seems to melt with satisfaction under the shower's pressure. And then, a noise. A clanging. What the hell is that? Stephanie whips back the shower curtain, and she swears she sees the outline of a body escaping from her bathroom doorway through her tiny apartment. She grabs a towel and gets out of the shower. Motherfuckers! Those neighborhood boys, the shit's followed her home. And somehow they jimmy'd her door and worked their pervy asses into her apartment to sneak a peek of her, naked, in the shower.
35:59 Jake Brennan? It was a gross invasion of privacy. One that, like her experience burlesque dancing, no doubt helped shape the songs she was currently demoing. Songs that would eventually appear on her debut album, The Fame. Specifically, her song "Paparazzi", which is both a devotion to and a critique of fame. The influence of Lady Gaga's apprenticeship on the Lower East Side on her art is immense. You can still feel the burlesque influence in her music, as recently as her latest 2025 Grammy-nominated album, Mayhem. Perhaps more significant is the camp influence Gaga pulled out for her iconic arrival at the Met in 2019.
36:44 Jake Brennan? Choosing as one of her four outfits, a fishnet and panties number, with bangs but minus the teased hair, to elevate burlesque into high fashion. Her nostalgic return to her burlesque influence came, mind you, after she obtained true pop icon status by turning in a critical and commercial star performance on the big screen opposite Bradley Cooper in the blockbuster remake of Judy Garland's and then Barbra Streisand's A Star is Born. But back in the mid-aughts on the LES, Stephanie Germanata was still trying to find herself amid the crime and grime of Lower Manhattan. For starters, she needed a stage name. Stephanie Germanata wasn't going to cut it. Her father had done a lot for her career.
37:29 Jake Brennan? He used his connections to secure her early gigs, paid for piano lessons, negotiated her contract with Rob Fusari, even paid for her Stanton Street apartment, but he hadn't given her a stage name at birth as Madonna's father had. Queen's "Radio Gaga" wasn't just a song Stephanie danced to. It was a song she was obsessed with, so much so that her producer began playfully calling her "Radio Gaga." And one day, her producer Rob reached out to Stephanie via text. "Radio Gaga, meet you at the studio at noon." But Rob's phone autocorrected his message from "Radio Gaga" to "Lady Gaga." And that was that.
38:12 Jake Brennan? Stephanie Germanata had a new name. That's if you believe her version of her origin story. There's another Lady Gaga origin story from back in those days. A story that doesn't involve cute rom-com-rated text message anecdotes, a story that instead involves murder.
38:55 Jake Brennan? On October 5th, 2018, a major motion picture entitled "A Star Is Born", co-starring the by this time massively successful pop star Lady Gaga, was released. On YouTube, a video promoting the film prompted this comment from a user, and I quote: "And then, on the 10-year anniversary of her suicide, Lady Gaga releases a movie about an aspiring pop star who benefits from using the look and sound of another star who was driven to kill himself for the sake of her career."
39:28 Jake Brennan? Okay, well what the hell is this all about? That's what you might be asking yourself, or if you're a massive Gaga fan, you might have been asking yourself this back in 2019. Whose suicide, exactly? Exactly who is this YouTube commentator talking about?
39:46 Jake Brennan? The digital conversation swiftly moved over to Reddit, where one commentator added in response to the YouTube comment: "Yeah, like taking her song, changing one letter, and branding it as hers, while basically also stealing her music style and fashion style as well, taken on by Gaga right after she sacrificed her buddy for it all." Another user chimes in with: "On the other hand, Gaga's adoption of her friend's style after her sudden death might just be how she's coping with losing a close friend. It might be her way of keeping her friend alive in her heart." But this sober reasoning is quickly torpedoed by yet another commenter, who says: "Way I heard it, her friend actually killed Lady Gaga and has been wearing her skin for the last couple of years."
40:30 Jake Brennan? So who is this friend? Who suddenly died? Who killed herself? Who is Lady Gaga being accused by conspiracy theorists on the internet of murdering? After stealing both her music and style to obtain fame? And that friend of Lady Gaga's would be Lina Morgana.
40:53 Jake Brennan? Lina Morgana was more than a friend to Lady Gaga. She was an artistic collaborator. The two of them worked together alongside producer Rob Fusari during Gaga's early demo days. In pictures of the two from that time, they do indeed resemble one another with a similar sense of fashion and attitude. But only one aspiring artist became a star. The other one, Lina Morgana, would be dead before Lady Gaga released her first album, before her first single made the charts, before her first major music videos were ever released. One of those videos, for the song "Paparazzi," shows Lady Gaga being thrown to her death from a building.
41:38 Jake Brennan? The video was released in May 2009. Seven months before that, Lina Morgana was found dead, thrown from the roof of the Staten Island Hotel. I'm Jake Brennan, and this episode of DisgraceLand is to be continued.
42:08 Jake Brennan? DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at youtube.com slash @disgracelandpod. Rock or roll.
42:33 Speaker 03 He's a bad, bad man.
42:36 Jake Brennan? Hey, guys. Time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. Back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the beach club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of DisgraceLand along Along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, podcast of the year award winners, Wisecrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind the scenes storytelling, exclusive meet and greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one of a kind voyage. Head
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Previous Bonus Episode: Grammy Snubs, Righting the NWA Wrong, Wild Award Show Buggery, and More Next Lady Gaga (Pt.2): How Did Lady Gaga’s Friend and Collaborator Die? And Why Do The Conspiracy Theorists Refuse to let go of This Story? Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated