Much has been written about Lady Gaga, but in this week’s New York Magazine cover story, Vanessa Grigoriadis gets the full story of her evolution to pantsless pop star. Stefani Germanotta grew up on the Upper West Side and had a theater-geek adolescence at the Manhattan Catholic school Sacred Heart, but dropped out of NYU’s Tisch to pursue her dreams of becoming a star. The only problem: She didn’t know who she wanted to be. Grigoriadis gets at the transition from Germanotta to Gaga, and explores the many incarnations of the now 24-year-old, from singer-songwriter to Lower East Side club performer to avant-garde disco dance queen. Gaga’s journey is a true New York tale: As she says, “The Lower East Side has an arrogance, a stench. We walk and talk and live and breathe who we are with such an incredible stench that eventually the stench becomes a reality. Our vanity is a positive thing. It’s made me the woman I am today.”
Growing Up Gaga [NYM]
Related: The Lady Gaga Look Book
