Lady Gaga

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known professionally as Lady Gaga, born March 28, 1986, in New York City, is one of the most versatile, boundary-defying, and consequential creative figures in global entertainment of the 21st century, a singer-songwriter, actress, and cultural provocateur whose career has encompassed pop maximalism, jazz classicism, country, electropop, and mainstream Hollywood drama with equal conviction and success. Born into an Italian-American family in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan — her father Joe was an internet entrepreneur and her mother Cynthia a telecommunications executive — she grew up steeped in the music of Springsteen, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd, and began playing piano by ear at age four. She studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, which she left after one semester to pursue music full-time in the Lower East Side club scene, eventually being discovered by Akon and signed to Interscope. Her debut album The Fame (2008) produced the twin global smashes Just Dance and Poker Face, launching one of the most visually flamboyant and conceptually audacious pop careers in history. The Fame Monster, Born This Way (2011, whose title track became the defining LGBTQ+ anthem of its era), ARTPOP (2013), and Joanne (2016) followed. She won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Shallow from A Star Is Born (2018), in which her acting performance opposite Bradley Cooper earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Chromatica (2020) and her role as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie a Deux (2024) and her House of Gucci performance (2021) demonstrated her relentless creative ambition across genres. She has been an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and mental health awareness throughout her career.