You know an Oscars performance for Best Song is note-worthy when we're all still talking about it many days later. Just in case you missed it, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper gave an intimate performance of their hit song "Shallow" from A Star Is Born, and the Internet collectively lost its mind with rampant speculation about whether the two were more than just friends and costars. It was an incredible live moment filled with chemistry, yes, but the response was more than a little problematic.
Now Lady Gaga is finally speaking out about the rumors of their supposed affair during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
"Social media, quite frankly, is the toilet of the Internet," she told Jimmy Kimmel of the commentary, while offering up an eye roll to end all eye rolls. "And what it has done to pop culture is just, like, abysmal." So far we're detecting no lies here.
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“Yes, people saw love and guess what? That’s what we wanted you to see,” Gaga continued. She added that while she's not usually one to relinquish control of her live performance vibe, she let Cooper direct the entire thing, down to the lighting. “[Shallow] is a love song; A Star Is Born is a love story,” she explained. “It was so important to both of us that we were connected the entire time…. When you’re singing love songs, that’s what you want people to feel.”
Gaga noted that she's been doing lovey duets with her "arms wrapped around Tony Bennett" for years and hasn't been confronted with the same rumors and innuendo. So, yeah, we can all just shut down those Gaga-Cooper ’ship rumors right now. Mostly, she's just really proud of her friend for getting up there and singing live in front of the world.
"My favorite thing about the whole experience was I was just so excited for people, not only at home, but our peers in the room to see him sing live and know that he sang every take live in this movie every single time," she said. "I mean, all of it. There's no lip-synching." And because Gaga is the best sport, she even reenacted that now iconic head tilt with Kimmel.
Watch the full interview below.
Now that Lady Gaga has finally set the record straight, it's probably time for us all to let the old ways (of conjuring a relationship between two costars) die.
