You’d think Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande would easily be BFFs given that they’re both superstars and have worked together on the much-hyped collab track, ‘Rain On Me’. But underneath all that glitz, glamour, and world-saving things she does, it seems like Lady Gaga racked with the same sort of self-doubt we all have when it comes to hanging out with people.
Speaking of Lady Gaga, the GOAT team talk about her most underrated album, ‘Artpop’, on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Chatting with Zane Lowe on his Apple Music show (via Billboard), Lady Gaga took a deep dive into her Chromatica album, how the record came about, and talked about a number of songs on it, including ‘Rain On Me’.
When asked about how it was working on her ‘Rain On Me’ collab with Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga gushed about how the two instantly connected on a creative and musical level during the recording of the single:
“When we were vocally producing her, I was sitting at the console and talking to her. And then I remember I said to her, ‘OK, now everything that you care about while you sing, I want you to forget it and just sing. And by the way, while you’re doing that, I’m going to dance in front of you,’ because we had this huge big window.
“And she was like, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God, I can’t, I can’t. I don’t know. Oh my God. Okay, okay.’ And then I did it and she sang, and she started to do things with her voice that were different. And it was the joy of two artists going, ‘I see you.'”
But things then took a turn for the painfully relatable when Lady Gaga talked about how despite her growing relationship with Ariana Grande, she felt “too ashamed” to open herself up and just hang out with her collab partner, despite Ari putting in a big effort to be friends with her.
Happily, Gaga eventually got over her self-doubt after a D&M with Ari and the two became friends:
“She was like, ‘You’re going to be OK. Call me, here’s my number.’ And she was so persistent. She would try over and over again to be friends with me. And I was too ashamed to hang out with her, because I didn’t want to project all of this negativity onto something that was healing and so beautiful.
“And eventually she called me on my sh*t. She was, ‘You’re hiding.’ And I was like, ‘I am hiding. I’m totally hiding.’ And then this friendship blossomed.”
The rest of us plebs definitely haven’t been in a recording studio working on a banger with a fellow superstar. But the self-doubt one feels after connecting with someone, especially if said someone is putting in an effort just to be friends with you? Yeah that hits really close to home.
It’s difficult to open yourself up to someone new, especially if that person is a peer whom you have admired. And who hasn’t gone down the slippery slope of thinking “what if I screw this up?” and “I don’t want to ruin what we got” whenever you form a connection with someone?
Hearing that Lady Gaga was hesitant to be friends with Ariana Grande because of her own hang ups is something we can all relate to. And as weird as it is too say, hearing people as powerful and influential as Gaga be so vulnerable is pretty comforting and strangely empowering because it just shows we’re all human at the end of the day.
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