Lady Gaga is opening up about the rumors of a real-life romance with her A Star is Born co-star Bradley Cooper, saying they did not exactly fight the idea too hard. In a new interview with Elle, Gaga said that they “orchestrated” the romance as a part of the excitement about their movie. Given the subject matter, the two stars wanted viewers to “believe they were in love.”
Fans were scratching their heads earlier this year when Lady Gaga and Cooper showed incredibly chemistry in A Star is Born. Even their promotions off screen seemed palpably romantic, particularly their performance at the Academy Awards in February. Now, Gaga tells Elle that they hoped rumors like this would help the movie.
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“I mean, we made a love story. For me, as a performer and as an actress, of course we wanted people to believe that we were in love. And we wanted people to feel that love at the Oscars,” she said. “We wanted it to go right through the lens of that camera and to every television that it was being watched on. And we worked hard on it, we worked for days. We mapped the whole thing out — it was orchestrated as a performance.”
In spite of the controversy and personal judgement that came with the rumors, Gaga said that she and Cooper were pleased by the reaction they got. For better or worse, they achieved what they set out to do. “It did. In truth, when we talked about it, we went, ‘Well, I guess we did a good job!’”
In general, Gaga said that she feels her celebrity status gives her a “responsibility to the world,” and that she tries not to focus on her personal outcome, but on the the societal impact of her work and herself as an icon.
“I actually said this the other day on social media. I said, ‘I didn’t do this for fame, I did it for impact,’” she said.
Gaga and Cooper co-starred in the lauded remake of A Star is Born, which came out in October of 2018. At the time, fans were convinced that the two had an off-screen romance to match their chemistry in the movie. They were even more certain when Cooper and his long-time partner Irina Shayk broke up in June of 2019.
Gaga also ended a serious relationship after the movie was released. In February, she and talent agent Christian Carino broke off their engagement. Fans were surprised, but many linked both breakups back to A Star is Born.
From the sound of it, Gaga expected them to react that way. However, she did not indicate that there was any truth to the rumors, however ubiquitous they might be.
A Star is Born is available to stream on HBO and HBO Now.
