Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (/stfni drmnt/ STEF--nee jur-m-NOT-; born

March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter and
actress. She performed initially in theater, appearing in high school plays, and studied
at CAP21 through NYU's Tisch School of the Arts before dropping out to pursue a musical career.
After leaving a rock band, participating in the Lower East Side's avant garde performance art circuit,
and being dropped from a contract with Def Jam Recordings, Gaga worked as a songwriter
for Sony/ATV Music Publishing. From there, recording artist Akon noticed her vocal abilities and
helped her to sign a joint deal with Interscope Records and his own KonLive Distribution.
Her debut album The Fame (2008) was a critical and commercial success that produced
international chart-topping singles such as "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". A follow-up EP, The
Fame Monster (2009), was met with a similar reception and "Bad Romance", "Telephone", and
"Alejandro" were released, becoming successful singles. Her second full-length album Born This
Way was released in 2011, topping the charts in more than 20 countries, including the United States,
where it sold over one million copies in its first week. The album produced the number-one single
"Born This Way". Her third album Artpop, released in 2013, topped the US charts and included the
successful single "Applause". In 2014, Gaga released a collaborative jazz album with Tony
Bennett titled Cheek to Cheek, which became her third consecutive number one in the United
States. For her work in the television series American Horror Story: Hotel, Gaga won a Golden
Globe Award in 2016. She became the first woman to have four US number one albums in the
2010s when her fifth studio album Joanne (2016) topped the nation's charts.
With global album and single sales of 27 million and 146 million respectively, as of January 2016,
she is one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Her achievements include twelve Guinness World
Records, three Brit Awards, and six Grammy Awards. She is also the first artist to win
the Songwriters Hall of Fame's Contemporary Icon Award. Other accolades include a Fashion Icon
lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (2011), regular
appearances on Billboard's Artists of the Year lists and Forbes's power and earnings rankings. In
2013, Gaga finished second on Time's readers' poll of the most influential people of the past ten
years, while in 2015, she was named Billboard's Woman of the Year. She is known for her
philanthropic work and social activism, including LGBT rights and her own non-profit organization,
the Born This Way Foundation, which focuses on promoting youth empowerment and combating
bullying.
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on March 28, 1986, at the Lenox Hill
Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side [2] to a Catholic family.[3] She is the elder daughter of
Cynthia Louise "Cindy" (Bissett) and Internet entrepreneur Joseph Anthony "Joe" Germanotta, Jr.[4][5]
[6]
Gaga is of 75 percent Italian descent, and also has French Canadianancestry.[7][8][9] Gaga's sister
Natali is a fashion student.[10] Despite her affluent upbringing on Manhattan's Upper West Side, she
says that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everythingmy
mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father." From
age eleven, she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private, all-girls Roman Catholic school
on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated,
very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure". "I used to get made fun of for being either
too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak." [16] In
2014, Gaga confessed to being raped at the age of 19. She stated, "I went through some horrific
things that I'm able to laugh [at] now, because I've gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy
and emotional therapy to heal over the years". [17] Gaga later said that she suffers from Posttraumatic

stress disorder because of the rape, and that support from doctors, family, and friends "really saved
my life".[18]
Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four, wrote her first piano ballad at thirteen, and started
to perform at open micnights by the age of fourteen.[20] She performed lead roles in high school
productions, including Adelaide in Guys and Dollsand Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way
to the Forum.[21] She also appeared in a very small role as a mischievous classmate in the television
drama series The Sopranos in a 2001 episode titled "The Telltale Moozadell". She auditioned for
New York shows without success.[11][22] She also studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre
and Film Institute for ten years.[23][24] After high school, her mother encouraged her to apply for
the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), a musical theater training conservatory at New York
University's Tisch School of the Arts.[11] One of 20 students to gain early admission, she, aged 17,
lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street.[21] In addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she
composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues, and politics, including a thesis
on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst.[25][26] She also auditioned for various roles and won
the part of an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV's Boiling Points, a prank reality television show