Pop star makes appearance at historic hip-hop concert.
By Mawuse Ziegbe

Lady Gaga and Eminem (file)

Photo: Christopher Polk/ Getty Images

The stars definitely came out for Eminem and Jay-Z.

The hip-hop heavyweights brought big-name guests like Dr. Dre, 50 Cent and Drake onstage during their two-night Home and Home Tour run at Detroit’s Comerica Park. One megastar didn’t hit the stage but did show support during the duo’s final Motor City show: Lady Gaga.

According to The Detroit News, the pop sensation, who was in town for her own Monster Ball Tour date on Saturday (September 4), checked out the show from a raised platform in the middle of the arena. Decked out in a silver miniskirt and sporting sable-colored locks, the native New Yorker grooved to Jigga and Alicia Keys’ smash “Empire State of Mind.” Gaga even threw up the Roc-A-Fella diamond when Hov ripped The Blueprint album cut “U Don’t Know.” Rap-Up.com reports the singer sipped from a plastic cup throughout the show, and took in Jay’s set for about an hour before retreating backstage.

There’s a good chance that Gaga and Em will cross paths during another major show: the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. The hitmakers have corralled the most Moonmen nods, with Gaga landing a record-shattering 13 nominations and Eminem scoring eight. The pop supernova’s “Bad Romance” and the chart-topping MC’s “Not Afraid” will also face off in the coveted Video of the Year category

After pulling off a slew of all-star guest appearances and shutting things down with two triumphant high-energy D-Town shows, Em will hit the stage at the VMAs, which will be broadcast live from Los Angeles on September 12.

Did you see Jay-Z and Eminem in concert? Let us know in the comments below!

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Armed with multiple dressing rooms and costume changes, Gaga makes a memorable debut.
By Mawuse Ziegbe

Lady Gaga performs at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards

Photo: Getty Images

After the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Lady Gaga was no longer just another face in the pantheon of rising pop stars who occasionally hit the red carpet in a zany getup. She became, undeniably, a star.

In an evening packed with an all-star tribute to Michael Jackson, an elaborate Taylor Swift performance in a New York City subway station and headline-hogging stage-crashing moments, Gaga still stood out. It wasn’t just her blood-smeared rendition of “Paparazzi” that scored fans’ attention; it was her eye-popping, show-topping, OMG-inducing style. In the MTV special “The VMAs: Revealed – Presented by New 5 React Gum,” VMA insiders broke down exactly how her inventive fashion made for one of the most legendary debuts in the show’s history.

Ultimately, five game-changing Gaga looks were broadcast to viewers that evening, but the pop star and her team came ready to rock a bunch of outfits. “She showed up with racks and racks of clothes,” dressing room production assistant Katie Meath said. “We had five P.A.s carry everything up and we went back for another round.”

“I remember one thing. It looked like a black dominatrix outfit but there were spikes. There was a lot going on,” dressing room production assistant Anthony Deleo added.

Dealing with a gaggle of style choices, Gaga didn’t have the time to get tripped up by the backstage mayhem, and show organizers had to figure out a way for the star to hop in and out of her complex outfits with ease.

“The day before the show we had rehearsals. We actually had a stopwatch just timing ourselves. We really didn’t have enough time to take her to her second-floor dressing room,” said Ernesto Elias of MTV Music & Talent. “We created a quick-change room right off the side of the stage.”

Gaga took home the Moonman for Best New Artist but by wriggling in and out of her fashion-forward costumes within minutes and hustling back to her seat in time to make a series of unforgettable cutaways, she also nabbed the honor of staging one of the most memorable VMA debuts ever.

“We’ve seen it all, we’ve done it all,” VMA director Hamish Hamilton said. “There we all were … kind of mesmerized in Gaga-dom.”

The 27th annual MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12 at 9 p.m. ET. Fans can go to VMA.MTV.com (or text VMA to 97979 if they are Verizon subscribers) to vote for the winners from now through September 12.

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Pop star poses alongside Marc Jacobs for the New York issue of V Magazine.
By James Dinh

Lady Gaga on the cover of <i>V Magazine</i>

Photo: V Magazine, LLC

As evidenced by her recent well-publicized attendance at a Mets game and her glorious Madison Square Garden show, Lady Gaga has always repped for her hometown of New York City. So it’s no surprise that Gaga is paying tribute to the Big Apple by posing as the Statue of Liberty alongside fashion guru Marc Jacobs on the fall cover of V Magazine.

Posing with Jacobs, a shopping cart and an old TV set, Gaga stands with her mouth slightly open in a black lace bra and panties with a gray dress sliding off her body. With her toned abs and her hair shaped into a crown, the pop star is holding a burning torch, mimicking the New York landmark. And while Gaga does her best impression of the neoclassical sculpture, Jacobs remains serious and firm, sitting on top of the television in a traditional black-and-white suit. In another photo, the singer is seen crouched in the carriage as she’s pushed around by the fashion designer with her torch held high. Just last year, the singer appeared on the fall issue of the magazine donning Jacobs-designed pieces.

In the issue, which is on sale now, V Magazine highlights some of New York’s most profound figures, people they say “are making the city their own way.”

Editor Stephen Gan revealed that he chose the pop star because her representative values parallel those of the magazine. “Just as the Statue of Liberty was France’s gift to America, Gaga is, to us, New York’s greatest gift to pop culture and fashion,” he said in a statement. “She embodies everything V is about, and is also a beacon of the city’s creativity and hope. Exactly one year after her first V cover (the first fashion magazine cover she was on), we decided to do the NEW YORK issue, and she was the first person who came to mind to represent our great city.”

Gan declared Gaga “a bonafide genius” and credited her as V Magazine’s “muse” of inspiration. “Above all, a New York issue should celebrate people who’ve done great things. We at V are grateful Gaga came along to put the New back in New York!” he concluded.

But the singer doesn’t always leave fashion editors with the best impression. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour spoke about the pop star during her stop at “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on Wednesday.

“We had Lady Gaga this year,” she said of the singer’s performance at this year’s Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala. “She was communing with God and she was praying in the back, waiting for God to tell her it was all right to actually go onstage.” Wintour chuckled before revealing that Gaga left the audience waiting for more than 40 minutes.

To learn more about Lady Gaga’s crazy road to fashion icon, watch “VMAs: Revealed Saturday at 11 a.m. on MTV.

What do you think of Lady Gaga’s Statue of Liberty-inspired cover? Sound off below!

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Learn how Gaga pulled off her unforgettable VMA debut in the special premiering Saturday at 11 a.m. on MTV
By Mawuse Ziegbe

Lady Gaga at a 2009 VMA afterparty

Photo: Amy Sussman/ Getty Images

By most accounts, Lady Gaga turned it out at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Gaga stormed the event with an outrageous performance of “Paparazzi” and a cavalcade of costumes that made her debut one of the most memorable first-time VMA outings in the show’s history. In the MTV special, “The VMAs: Revealed – Presented by New 5 React Gum,” viewers will get an inside look at how Gaga and her team pulled off the show-stopping fashion extravaganza.

“I told them I wanted to bleed to death for four minutes, and it just went silent. And then they said, ‘OK Gaga, if that’s your vision we’re gonna do it,’ ” Gaga says in the special, describing her meeting with VMA organizers.

Gaga didn’t let her status as a VMA rookie stop her from constructing an awards-show appearance for the ages. The singer got her wish to depict her stylized demise onstage, ending her performance by dangling above her crew of dancers, her skimpy white lace ensemble smeared with blood.

When the “Poker Face” singer won the Moonman for Best New Artist, she thrust the trophy in the air and declared, “This is for God and the gays!” But for the most part, Gaga let her outfits do the talking for much of the show. In addition to the head-to-toe crimson lace number she donned to accept the award, Gaga hit the carpet and held court in the audience in a bevy of OMG-inducing looks. She was snapped in a corseted Victorian-era Jean Paul Gaultier creation replete with black feathers and a gilded mask. She later showed off her trophy as a vision of Jetson chic, in a space-age lavender bodysuit with three-dimensional details.

Gaga owned VMA night when it came to daring style but executing her elaborate fashion show within an awards show was a major enterprise. To learn how it all went down, catch
“The VMAs: Revealed – Presented by New 5 React Gum” Saturday at 11 a.m. on MTV.

The 27th annual MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12. The party starts with MTV News’ VMA Pre-Show at 8 p.m., followed by the main event at 9 p.m. ET. Fans can go to VMA.MTV.com (or text VMA to 97979 if they are Verizon subscribers) to vote for Best New Artist from now through September 12.

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‘It’s [Lady] Guh-GAW,’ Handler says behind the scenes of her VMA promo.
By Mawuse Ziegbe

Chelsea Handler

Photo: Timothy White

Chelsea Handler is hard at work preparing for her gig as host of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, a job that includes making sure that there are no slip-ups when it comes to shouting out oddly named pop stars. So, when the cameras went behind the scenes at the funnywoman’s VMA promo shoot, Handler was found reprimanding her staff about the proper ways to announce some of this year’s nominees.

“I am excited to see Lady Guh-GAW,” Handler declared, while seated at the head of her staffers table. When someone on her team chimes in with “It’s Gaga,” the way that, well, the whole world pronounces it, the “Chelsea Lately” host jokingly corrected the supposed flub.

“No, it’s Guh-GAW,” Handler deadpanned. “Everyone pronounces it wrong.” The comedienne pointed out that another blonde hitmaker, Ke$sha, has endured mass mispronunciation of her uniquely spelled moniker.

“Just like Keh-dollar-sign-hah pronounced that way,” Handler said. “She doesn’t want you to say it the other way. I met her.”

With the big night just a couple weeks away and the pressure on to deliver another live two-hour event packed with oh-no-they-didn’t moments, the cameras caught Handler and her team engaged in intense brainstorming sessions. And the crew brought in a master of mayhem to help ideate television magic: Kid Rock.

“You can go down on Snooki in the hot tub that they have on the ‘Jersey Shore,’ ” Handler suggested to Rock. Lucky for the Handler, the Detroit rap-rocker seemed down for anything. “After a couple fifths of whiskey I’ll go either way. Hell, after a fifth of whiskey I’d have sex with you.”

Handler, who has experienced her fair share of passes from popular lyricists, served up a demure reply to the open invitation for a drunken hookup. “Thank you,” Handler responded.

What are you expecting from Chelsea Handler as host of the VMAs? Let us know in the comments below!

The 27th annual MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12. The party starts with MTV News’ VMA Pre-Show at 8 p.m., followed by the main event at 9 p.m. ET. Fans can go to VMA.MTV.com (or text VMA to 97979 if they are Verizon subscribers) to vote for Best New Artist from now through September 12.

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Gaga previewed the piano ballad at a show in St. Paul on Monday night.
By Gil Kaufman

Lady Gaga

Photo: Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images

Lady Gaga gave her Little Monsters another sneak peek at her upcoming album on Monday night during a show in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she pulled back the cover on the song “Living on the Radio.”

The gentle piano ballad has a nostalgic feel. In it, Gaga gives herself a kind of pep talk about fame and fortune, throws a loving shout out to her adoring fans and pats herself on the back for finally realizing her ambition of getting on the radio.

“Baby, you must be free/ Keep living on the radio/ That’s your dream,” sings Gaga, who at the age of 24 has already charted six #1 hits between her debut, The Fame, and its sequel, The Fame Monster, and has notched 25 million singles downloads and near-ubiquity on the radio over the past 18 months. “Baby, you’ve got a friend/ And so many little monsters/ Keep living on the radio/ And when there’s nowhere to go/ And all your friends are gone/ And you’ve only got your daddy to call/ You’re gonna be all right, honey/ Because your songs are on the radio.”

In the classic tradition of the road tune, Gaga laments the loneliness of living out of a suitcase and lonely nights spent away from home. It helps that, in her case, she’s traveling on a “road paved in gold,” which clearly makes it a bit less of a drag. There are also nods to champagne, caviar and sold-out shows, which presumably make life on a tour bus that much easier to manage.

It’s the second song from Gaga’s still-untitled album, which the singer has been previewing during her Monster Ball Tour. She has also performed the new song “You and I,” which she debuted in late June at Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara ball. It’s unknown if either song will make the cut on the disc, which Gaga has described as “utter liberation” and frequent Gaga producer RedOne said will be “shocking.”

What do you think of Gaga’s new song? Tell us in comments below.

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Madame Tussauds asks ‘little monsters’ to suggest their favorite outfits for upcoming replicas.
By Gil Kaufman

Lady Gaga

Photo: David Livingston/ Getty Images

Lady Gaga’s whole existence sometimes feels like a living, breathing, bleeding, gender-bending work of art. Now, Madame Tussauds is planning to spend major bucks to turn the international pop sensation into a life-size waxwork.

According to a spokesperson for the New York branch of Madame Tussauds, the popular tourist attraction in Times Square is working on a Gaga figure that should be ready by year’s end. And here’s the best part:

“We’re open to hearing from fans about which looks they want,” said the spokesperson, encouraging Gaga’s “little monsters” to visit NYCWax.com to weigh in on which of Gaga’s many signature styles they would like to see immortalized in wax. While the spokesperson could not comment on a report in a British tabloid that Tussauds is spending more than $1.5 million on the Gaga figures, they did clarify that “many” but not all nine global outlets will get their own Gaga. It is also not yet known if all the Gagas will sport the same look or have different outfits.

The museum is legendary for making wax replicas of the rich and famous, from President Obama and Justin Timberlake to Marilyn Monroe, Brad Pitt, Derek Jeter, former “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell, Madonna and Beyoncé.

The singer, who is up for a record 13 Moonmen at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards, gave Tussauds yet another possibility this week when she set aside female things and posed as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, for the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan. The magazine, which hits newsstands September 5, features a cover shot of Gaga as Calderone with an Elvis pompadour, white shirt and black trousers.

Which of Gaga’s looks do you think Tussauds should immortalize in wax? Leave your comments below!

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Gaga is virtually unrecognizable as ‘Jo Calderone’ in Vogue Hommes Japan.
By Jocelyn Vena

Lady Gaga (file)

Photo: Peter Wafzig/Getty Images

Lady Gaga has had some eye-catching magazine covers — she’s appeared wearing everything from lingerie to pretty much nothing at all. And for her latest, she’s bound to have lots of people talking once again. Gaga posed as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, for her gender-bending covers for Vogue Hommes Japan, out September 5. On one cover, Gaga, as Calderone, wears her hair like Elvis Presley and rocks a white shirt and black trousers. Another version simply shows a close-up of Calderone’s face, seen mostly in shadow.

The covers were posted to Gaga’s stylist Nicola Formichetti’s website, along with interview bites that Gaga conducted as Calderone, who is purportedly from Sicily. He says in the September issue, “[My occupation is] mechanic for my dad’s business. This is the first time I’ve had my picture taken. Well, I always helped my dad at work, since I was a kid. I thought it would be fun to have my picture taken.”

The interview also teases Calderone’s dream to own his own mechanic shop. “I’d love to own my own car shop. I have a bunch of my own ‘muscle’ cars,” he reveals. “Maybe if I take some more pictures, I can afford it.”

The photos first hit the Internet months ago and the speculation was in fact that it was Gaga on the cover. The shoot was styled by Formichetti and shot by Nick Knight, who apparently introduced Calderone to Gaga. “I met her at a shoot Nick Knight was doing,” he recalls. “She’s f—in’ beautiful, and funny, and interesting. I was a little nervous for Nick to start shooting. She said, ‘Don’t be baby, you were born this way.’ I took her out after. The rest is private.”

What do you think of Gaga’s Jo Calderone photos? Tell us in the comments.

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Singer poses on manga-inspired Pop cover.
By James Dinh

Britney Spears on the cover of <i>Pop</i>

Photo: J-Pop

From schoolgirl to toxic temptress, Britney Spears has played many characters throughout the years. But the singer took a very different approach for her photo spread in the upcoming issue of the U.K.’s Pop magazine by channeling her inner manga character. In the issue, the pop princess dished about the possibilities of a Lady Gaga collaboration and working with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for the anime-inspired cover.

Despite Gaga overthrowing Spears as the most-followed celebrity on Twitter, the singer had no hard feelings toward pop’s newest sensation. “I’m a big fan of hers,” she said when asked about working with Gaga. “Anything’s possible!”

A collaboration between the pop stars doesn’t seem out of the question, as Gaga’s mega-hit “Telephone” duet with Beyoncé was originally offered to Spears.

Donning a white wedding dress and a veil with matching gloves, Spears innocently poses in a field of flowers on the cover. In another photo, the singer trades the dress for a leg-baring getup accessorized with a red backpack.

Spears’ manga-style shoot was shot by Todd Cole with art direction from Takashi Murakami, who is often referred to as the “Andy Warhol of Japan.” While the spread strays from the singer’s typical styling, the pop star enjoyed working with the artist. “I loved working with Takashi,” she said. “I especially liked how he took high-end fashion and incorporated it with Japanese manga.”

The singer’s tour to Japan was what originally piqued her interest in Japanese culture. “We looked at a lot of characters and artwork before we shot, so I could get a feel for what he was looking for,” she explained. “I was in Japan on my past promo tour, and I loved it.”

Editor in Chief Dasha Zhukova spoke to Style.com about the singer’s Japanese treatment: “She’s feminine, sassy, strong-willed, determined: all the things a great Pop icon should be. Couple that with some Japanese swimsuits and a Rodarte wedding gown, and I think she is pretty much Pop personified!”

Spears couldn’t wait to share her excitement for her photo shoot with fans. The pop star took to Twitter, saying, “I just saw the photos for the first time and they are beautiful. Comes out Sept. 1st. Thanks @TakashiPom — Britney.”

Aside from gracing the cover of Pop magazine, the singer has already filmed a cameo for her “Glee” tribute episode and is working on completing the follow-up to 2008’s Circus.

What do you think of Britney’s manga-inspired photo shoot? Would you like to hear a Britney and Gaga collabo? Share your thoughts below!

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