Lady Gaga Was So "Unhappy" During An Interview In France That Kept Rolling After She Asked To Cut The Cameras

Summary

• Lady Gaga's fragrance, Fame, sold over 37 million bottles and grossed more than $2 billion.
• During a 2012 interview with M6, Gaga asked the cameras to be turned off, but they kept filming, making her visibly uncomfortable.
• Gaga battled depression and loneliness during that time, leading her to start the Born This Way foundation in 2012.

2012 Lady Gaga was something else. Back then, she consistently topped the charts with controversial hits and released her first fragrance, Fame, which smelled like "blood and semen." The perfume sold over 37 million bottles and grossed more than $2 billion in total. But while promoting the product with French media group, M6, the singer looked "unhappy" as the cameras kept rolling after she'd asked them to turn it off.

Fans praised Gaga for being "c---y throughout the interview (like the time she refused to discuss her sexuality). But back then, the singer was also going through a tough time – "cherishing loneliness" after opening up about her career-related depression – that led her to start the Born This Way foundation that year.

M6 Kept Filming Lady Gaga Against Her Wishes In 2012

At the start of the interview footage, Gaga was still doing her prep – checking the camera's positions, getting some makeup touch-ups, and asking her crew about a few things. In her "poor" French, she seemingly asked the media group to ensure the cameras were off. They lied and kept documenting the entire thing anyway.

The Bad Romance performer also had to dismiss the interview herself. "I'm sorry, I have to go. We obviously like each other, but we have to go," Gaga informed the awkward host, who kept making small talk after their long chat about her provocative stunts. Even as she moved away from the frame, a staffer told the music icon, "May I ask you something?" Gaga responded by telling everyone, for the ninth time, their time was up.

"Not them lying about the cameras being off 😭," a fan wrote in the comments of the YouTube clip. Another one added that it's "very weird that gaga and her assistant asked them numerous times to turn off the cameras as she walked in and after the interview and they kept rolling even though they said they were off."

On the meaning of her song Paparazzi, Lady Gaga said: "It's a love song for the cameras, but it's also a love song about fame or love – can you have both, or can you only have one?"

How "Unhappy" Lady Gaga Was Promoting Her Fragrance To "Lying" M6 In 2012

During her uncomfortable interview with M66, Gaga "looked so unhappy," a fan noticed. It didn't help that the host asked a "stupid question," like, "The [fragrance] campaign is really graphic, you have little men climbing all over you... Do you like being controversial?" The singer also looked exhausted from the entire perfume campaign.

"She looks gorgeous but she seems kind of tense from her body language especially the way she is gripping the chair for the first 10 mins," a netizen said of Gaga after she was filmed against her wishes.

Luckily, the interview is now regarded as one of the most iconic moments of "the old Lady Gaga." One wrote: "I love to watch celebs 'off camera' and see what they're like before the camera starts rolling (or in this case it was always rolling lol)..gaga is an enigma."

The commenter added: "She certainly has different personas and there is no doubt she has a 'grumpy' side to her but equally she is kind and apologetic and sincere. a bit like [Madonna] in that sense (only gaga is nicer!)."

Fast-forward to now, Gaga's fragrance line has evolved into a whole beauty line, the Haus Labs by Lady Gaga. Here's a timeline of this multimillion-dollar success:

2012 Lady Gaga Said She "Cherishes" Loneliness After Battling Depression

Fans were right to be concerned about Gaga looking "unhappy" during that intrusive interview with M6 in 2012. That year, the Poker Face songstress said that she was "cherishing" her loneliness. "I have begun to cherish my loneliness," she told The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet. "I have since I was around 20 years old... I was very depressed when I was 19 because I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school..."

She went on to admit that she got into drugs back then. "I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there and it was lonely and it was still," she recalled. "It was just my piano and myself. And I had a television that I would leave on all the time to feel like there was someone hanging out with me.

"And especially during the period when I was doing cocaine, it was like the drug was my friend," Lady Gaga said of her early 20s depression. "I never did it with other people. It's such a terrible way to fill that void, because it just adds to that void, because it's not real."

On what got her to stop, she said: "I sort of f--king woke up one day and was like, 'You're an a--hole. You're not an artist. If you were a real f--king artist, you'd be focused on your music. You wouldn't be spending your money on the white devil.'" She noted that "there's this perception and romanticism around the drug, that it's sexy or that it's so artistic or that your troubled and you're going to make great music, when really, you're just a f--king loser."

"I just stopped and focused 150 per cent of my energy on my happiness," Gaga said of recovering from substance abuse. That very same year, the Oscar winner founded the Born This Way non-profit organization, which "is committed to supporting the wellness of young people, and empowering them to create a kinder and braver world," per its official website.

Lady Gaga suffers from fibromyalgia or chronic pain linked to both physical and emotional trauma