(CNN) – Lady Gaga reflects on her careful response to past rumors that she was a man.
In an appearance at the “What's next? The future with Bill Gates” On Netflix, Gaga addressed insinuations that she was male or intersex as she was rising to stardom.
“I traveled all over the world,” Gaga told Gates. “I traveled to tour and promote my records, and in almost every interview I did — there were doctored images on the Internet — they would say, ‘There are rumors that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’”
Gaga often responded nonchalantly to such questions, as she demonstrated in a 2011 interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper for “60 minutes”.
“There was this rumor that you had a male appendage,” Cooper said then.
“I might have,” Gaga replied. “Would that be so terrible?”
“But it’s interesting,” Cooper continued. “A lot of artists would have put out some kind of statement saying, ‘This is absolutely not true,’ but you have fun with it.”
“Why the hell am I going to waste my time and put out a press release about whether I have a penis or not?” Gaga joked. “My fans don’t care and I don’t care either.”
In her conversation with Gates, Gaga further explained why she did not deny speculation about her gender.
“The reason I didn’t answer the question is because I didn’t feel like a victim of that lie and I thought, ‘What about a kid who’s being accused of that? What would he think of a public figure like me feeling shame? ’” she added. “I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor wasn’t in the best interest of other people’s well-being.”
The superstar said she has grown accustomed to the frequent “misinformation” about her.
“I’m used to people telling lies about me,” Gaga said. “I’m an artist. I find it funny.”
