Lady Gaga addressed early-career rumors about her gender in a recent episode of the Netflix series "What's Next? The Future With Bill Gates." In the "Truth or Consequences?" installment,which dives into misinformation and disinformation, she discussed why she chose not to address those rumors in the late 2000s.
The 60 Minutes presenter Anderson Cooper asked at the time: “There was a rumour that you had a male appendage, that you were a hermaphrodite and you joked about it on the stage last night… A lot of artists would immediately put out some sort of statement saying, ‘This is absolutely not true’. You have fun with it.”
To this, Gaga responded: “Maybe I do, would it be so terrible? Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care, and neither do I.”
“The reason why I didn’t answer the question is because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie. But I thought about, like, what about a kid who is being accused of that who would think that a public figure like me would feel shame?” Gaga told Gates. “I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor was not in the best interest of the well-being of other people. In that case, I tried to be thought-provoking and disruptive in another way. I tried to use the misinformation to create another disruptive point.”
In 2008, Lady Gaga faced rumors about her body, including her genitalia. These rumors peaked in 2009 after the release of her debut album The Fame. Following her performance at the Glastonbury Festival in June of that year, footage from the show led to speculation about a supposed bulge under her skirt. Instead of dismissing it as a costume or camera angle issue, rumors spread that it was actually a penis, as reported by ABC News at the time.