Lady Gaga Slams Madonna in New Documentary

Madonna has been openly critical of Lady Gaga, but in a new Netflix documentary, Gaga turns the tables and takes a shot or two at Madonna. Will it be the start of a whole new celeb feud?

Via Decider.

Lady Gaga is a performer who’s used to giving her audience a little bit more. More costume, more attitude, more high-concepts, more red meat on an awards-show dress. So when she showed up at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday night for the world premiere of her new documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two, she not only made herself available for a post-film Q&A, she also performed a piano-only version of “Bad Romance” (similar to the one she performs in the film at Tony Bennett’s 90th birthday party) before the gathered press, fans, and festival-goers at the Princess of Wales Theater.

The documentary itself — directed by Chris Moukarbel, who helmed the Chris Crocker doc, Me at the Zoo, among other films — follows Gaga during the creation of her most recent album, Joanne, and the prep for her Super Bowl halftime show appearance last February. In keeping with the stripped-down tone of the album, Five Foot Two shows a more open and vulnerable Gaga than the be-costumed stage creature we may have been used to. This synergy seems, if not exactly calculated, certainly intentional, with the ultra-image-conscious superstar serving us “herself” even if those quotation marks are sometimes visible.

But in general, the Gaga we find in Five Foot Two is incredibly genuine. We see her spending time with her family in New York, juggling the demands of her multi-faceted career, and dealing with chronic pain from a hip injury that seems just this side of debilitating. We also see her haggling in the studio with Joanne producer Mark Ronson, who might be the most charming thing on the screen whenever he’s around. Whether he’s lifting his shirt up to show his cupping marks, nonchalantly forgiving Gaga for busting up his car in a driveway fender-bender, or apologizing for being a “neurotic Jew” who’s uncomfortable with hugs, I was about ready to place him on my Best Supporting Actor ballot.

Back to Gaga, though, who is incredibly good at being aware of the camera without too often seeming like she’s setting up A Moment. There are a few times where the seams show: the moment where she casually takes off her top for a backyard lounge-chair meeting with her creative directors; or when she previews the title track to Joanne — a song and album named after Gaga’s late aunt, who died of lupus before she was born — for her grandmother, a ready-made Documentary Moment that is nicely undercut by her grandmother’s stubborn refusal to shed tears.

Other moments, though, seem genuinely off-the-cuff. Like, for example, the kind of rambling discussion about Madonna’s much-discussed dismissive comments about Gaga, calling her “reductive” and throwing other less direct shade. Five Foot Two marks the first time Gaga has responded to Madonna, which she does while essentially on a smoke break during recording. “The only thing that really bothers me about Madonna,” she says, “is that I’m Italian and from New York, and if I have a problem with you, I say it to your face […] I don’t pass notes in school,” comparing Madonna to the boy in school who passes a note instead of “pushing me up against the wall and kissing me. I want Madonna to push me up against the wall and kiss me and tell me I’m a piece of shit.”

Get the rest of the story at Decider.

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