Lady Gaga successfully reinvented herself this year, stressing the "Lady" part of her moniker with an acclaimed duet album and tour with noted legend Tony Bennett, redoubling her philanthropic efforts, meeting Babs Streisand, getting engaged to actor Taylor Kinney, shutting down the Oscars with a Sound of Music medley beloved by everyone accept Shonda Rhimes and Stephen Sondheim, and a starring role in American Horror Story: Hotel. The 29-year-old superstar fnishes off 2015 being named Billboard's Woman of the Year.
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Below, 10 things we learned from her interview with Billboard.
She thought about quitting music all together.
"At the end of 2014, my stylist asked, 'Do you even want to be a pop star anymore?' I looked at him and I go,'You know, if I could just stop this train right now, today, I would. I just can't. [But] I need to get off now because I'm going to die.'"
2015 was really her grown woman year.
"This is the year I did what I wanted instead of trying to keep up with what I thought everyone else wanted from me."
She's excited for her 30s.
It's suddenly, 'You're an old woman.' I'm not f---ing old. I'm more sexual and powerful and intelligent and on my shit than I've ever been.
Like most pop stars, she's not a big fan of the music industry.
Can't being an artist be enough? Is talent ever the thing? I think for Adele it is. I think for Bruno Mars it is. But that's what I learned from working with Tony: If talent isn't the thing, then you are way off-base.
She was bloodthirsty for her role on American Horror Story.
"I told him I wanted a place to put all of my anguish and rage and that I was excited to play a killer."
She took two months to prepare for her Sound of Music number at the Oscars.
I took the gamble because everyone had written me off. It took me a long time to get those notes. I told my manager, 'I need two months working with my vocal coach every day and to be sober, which means I can't do other work at all.'
She has "one of the great voices of all time," according to BFF Tony Bennett, who taught her how to be more badass.
There is nobody more badass than Tony Bennett. That man is a part of the history of music in a way that is extremely powerful, and he taught me to stay true to who I am, to not let anybody exploit me.
She wants kids to come for their art.
Kids become depressed when they are born with a creative instinct but are not taught how to express it. Can you imagine having to come and someone says, 'I'm so sorry, but you can never ejaculate in this life'? If you don't teach someone how to release that energy, it gets blocked up, and it's painful. Kids need to learn how to express who they are and seek value in it."
She's doesn't seek attention, she just "craves normalcy."
My whole career has been built on this perception that I'm trying to evoke attention because of the things I'm interested in, when it's not that way at all.
Much like mid-90s Lil' Kim, she's a hard-core chick.
"I hung upside down for 45 minutes for [video artist] Robert Wilson and drained all the blood in my body, and I've stood in a freezing cold river naked for two hours with magnets on my head for Marina Abramovic. I'm a hard-core chick. I go there. I can put all my rage into that dark art, and then the rest of my life can be spent clearheaded, doing the things I know to be right, like philanthropy and sticking to my guns musically."
