Lady Gaga may look a bit different these days than she did when she first arrived on the scene, but the pop superstar wants to get one thing straight: It’s not because she had plastic surgery.
Although those pointy protrusions she displayed on her face and shoulders at the Grammys and in her "Born This Way" music video seemed to mysteriously appear out of the blue, she explains in the May issue of Harper’s Bazaar that they’re not prosthetic – they’re her bones.
“They come out when I’m inspired,” Gaga says. “They've always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am."
And with a single titled “Born This Way,” is there ever a better time?
That song, by the way, was masterminded by the spirit of the late fashion icon Alexander McQueen, Gaga notes. (The music video, meanwhile, was inspired by "a lot of weed.")
"I think [McQueen] planned the whole thing," Gaga muses. "Right after he died, I wrote 'Born This Way.’” Further proof arrived when the song’s debut was moved up by the label to coincide with the one-year anniversary of his death.
“When I heard that, I knew he planned the whole damn thing," she says. "I didn’t even write that [expletive] song. He did!”
But back to those horns: Gaga swears they’re not the result of plastic surgery, and neither is anything else about her physicality, either.
“I have never had plastic surgery, and there are many pop stars who have. I think that promoting insecurity in the form of plastic surgery is infinitely more harmful than an artistic expression related to body modification,” she says.
Gaga explains that her physical changes are "artistic expression...It's a performance-art piece...I have never, ever encouraged my fans or anyone to harm themselves, nor do I romanticize masochism," she says.
Body modification for the sake of art is something entirely different than the plastic surgery of Hollywood, she argues. "How many models and actresses do you see on magazine covers who have brand-new faces and have had plastic surgery, while I myself have never had any plastic surgery? I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me."