CULTURE

Lady Gaga Shut Down the Romance Rumors Ignited by Her and Bradley Cooper’s Oscars Performance

"That's what we wanted you to see."


ABC's Coverage Of The 91st Annual Academy Awards – Show
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The lead-up to the 2019 Oscars may have been plagued by a seemingly endless train of controversies, but now that they’re finally over, all anybody cares about is the earth-shattering moment when Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper seemed to be extremely in love and extremely about to make out—mere feet away from Cooper’s partner, Irina Shayk—at the end of their performance of “Shallow.”

That stunning performance, complete with plenty of cheek nuzzling and soul gazing, immediately sparked rumors that Gaga and Cooper have been carrying on a not-so-secret tryst behind the backs of both Shayk and Christian Carino, with whom Gaga reportedly broke off her engagement just a few days before the Oscars. On Wednesday night, however, the freshly minted Oscar winner stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to shut down those rumors, invoking her and Cooper’s impeccable acting skills to explain their chemistry.

Gaga began her explanation of that electric final moment of the performance with a big eye roll, a sigh, and a warning about the dangers of getting too invested in social media speculation. “Okay, so, first of all, social media, quite frankly, is the toilet of the Internet, and what it has done to pop culture is just, like, abysmal,” she said, before explaining, “Yes, people saw love. And guess what? That’s what we wanted you to see! This is a love song, ‘Shallow’; the movie, A Star Is Born, it’s a love story. We worked so hard—we worked all week on that performance.”

She went on to share that, despite her own experience coordinating “a million” previous live stage performances, she relinquished control to Cooper and his directorial vision for the duet. “From a performance perspective, it was so important to both of us that we were connected the entire time. I mean, look, I’ve had my arms wrapped around Tony Bennett for three years touring the world. When you’re singing love songs, that’s what you want people to feel,” she added. “I’m an artist, and I guess we did a good job.”

In conclusion: “Fooled ya!”

Related: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper Almost Kissed During “Shallow” at the Oscars and the Internet Loves It