Lady Gaga Explains Why She Never Refuted Claims She Was a Man: ‘I Didn’t Feel Like a Victim’

Lady Gaga is finally addressing unsubstantiated rumors that followed her early in her music career.

“When I was in my early 20s there was a rumor that I was a man,” Gaga, 38, said during a conversation with Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates on his new Netflix series, What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates, which premiered Wednesday, September 18.

“I went all over the world — I traveled for tours, for promoting my records — and almost every interview I sat in, they [asked about it],” Gaga continued. “There was imagery on the internet that had been doctored. And they were like, ‘You know, there’s this rumor that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’”

“The reason I didn’t answer the question was because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie,” Gaga explained. “But I thought about, like, what about a kid that’s being accused of that, that would think a public figure like me would feel shame?”

Gaga added, “I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor was not in the best interest of … I thought of the well-being of other people. So, 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 2011, Anderson Cooper famously asked Gaga about rumors she had a “male appendage” in an interview for 60 Minutes. “Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?” Gaga responded. “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.”

Earlier in September, the singer and actress also opened up about a mean-spirited Facebook group set up by her college classmates that went viral early in her career. The group was allegedly created while Gaga — real name Stefani Germanotta — was studying at New York University.

Responding to a TikTok video that shared screenshots of the now-defunct group, which was called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous,” Gaga wrote, “Some people I went to college [with] made this way back when.”

“This is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down – gotta keep going,” added the Joker: Folie à Deux star.

Gaga clearly got the last laugh over her old classmates as she has won multiple accolades, including 13 Grammys and an Oscar.