Lady Gaga’s fame has seen an incredible increase within the past few years. After the release of The Fame in 2008, which included the hit “Poker Face,” her career took off dramatically. That was followed up with The Fame Monster, which produced hits “Bad Romance,” “Telephone,” and “Alejandro.” She went on tour for 18 months and it became one of the highest grossing tours ever. Born This Way was released in 2011 and sold a bazillion copies (okay, not really, but it did sell over a million copies the first week it was released). She has a devoted following (her Little Monsters). At the same time, she is very involved in activism, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, immigration laws, and animal rights as well as raised money for earthquake victims in both Haiti and Japan. Her outrageous fashion sense is often praised and criticized at the same time.
But, in the past few weeks, Lady Gaga has been in the news for something completely different – weight gain. Yes, the leader of the Little Monsters has gained a few pounds (30 by some estimates), but still performs in revealing costumes, so it didn’t go unnoticed by the press.
As you might expect, Lady Gaga didn’t take the scrutiny about her size lying down. She wrote in her blog, “I am not going to go on a psycho-spree because of scrutiny. This is who I am.” Lady Gaga may be extra sensitive to all the talk about the weight gain because she admitted that she suffered from bulimia and anorexia. She said that weight gain and loss and gain had tormented her since she was young, but she was now “happier than she had ever been.”
Kirstie Alley, a celebrity who has certainly seen her share of scrutiny about her size, recently said, “It’s Hollywood that is obsessed with weight” and said that “we send a horrible message to the world, especially girls.” Alley went to on to say she understood the pressure on Lady Gaga right now.