| Smithy |
27-05-2010 07:48 PM |
Quote:
“What’s the nearest you’ve ever come to death?” I ask her. “Do you have any recurring illnesses?”
She goes oddly still for a moment, and then says, “I have heart palpitations and… things.”
“Recently?”
“Yes, but it’s OK. It’s just from fatigue and other things,” she shrugs, before saying, with great care, “I’m very connected to my aunt, Joanne, who died of lupus. It’s a very personal thing. I don’t want my fans to be worried about me.”
Her eyes are very wide.
“Lupus. That’s genetic, isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And have you been tested?”
Again, the eyes are very wide and steady. “Yes.” Pause. “But I don’t want anyone to be worried.”
“When was the last time you called the emergency services?” I ask.
“The other day,” Gaga says, still talking very carefully. “In Tokyo. I was having trouble breathing. I had a little oxygen, then I went on stage. I was OK. But like I say, I don’t want anyone to worry.”
It’s a very odd moment. Gaga is staring at me calmly but intently.
Lupus is a connective tissue disease, where the immune system attacks the body. It can be fatal – although, as medicine advances, fatalities are becoming rarer. What it more commonly does is cause heart palpitations, shortness of breath, joint pain and anaemia, before spasmodically but recurrently driving a truck through your energy levels, so that you are often too fatigued to accomplish even the simplest of tasks.
Suddenly, all the “Gaga cracking up” stories revolve 180 degrees, and turn into something completely different. After all, the woman before me seems about as far removed from someone on the verge of a fame-induced nervous breakdown as possible to imagine. She’s being warm, candid, smart, amusing and supremely confident in her talent. She’s basically like some hot, giggly pop-nerd.
Of course, she hasn’t said, outright, “I have lupus.” But the suggestion throws the whole previous year – being delayed on stage, cancelling gigs, having to call the emergency services – into sharp relief.
Gaga is certainly very affected by her aunt’s demise: the date of her death, in 1976, is woven into her Rilke tattoo on her arm. When I ask her if she ever “dresses down”, she says the only thing remotely “dress down-y” she has is a pair of pink, cotton shorts, embroidered with flowers, that once belonged to her aunt.
“They’re nearly 40 years old,” she says. “But I wear them when I want her to protect me.”
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Snippets as you cba reading it :laugh: |
