Lady Gaga's 12 Most Italian Moments, Ranked
House of Gucci is the latest in a long line of heritage-rich career moves from the quintessential Italian girl from New York, but will it be her MOST Italian?
On Tuesday, an innocuous photo of noted Italian-American excellence Lady Gaga and infamous Big Boy Adam Driver on the set of their new film House of Gucci shook the world. The film, directed by Ridley Scott, is the story of the events preceding and following the assassination of Maurizio Gucci (Driver), ordered by his spurned ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga). And as if that wasn’t enticing enough, the photo of Gaga and Driver posing together in their best après ski couture on the slopes of Gressoney, Italy is here to feast our eyes on. At four million likes and counting, it’s clear the world is waiting with bated breath on the film’s November 2021 release, set to potentially be Lady Gaga’s most Italian project yet — joining a long line of notably comparable career moments.
In her career thus far, Gaga has made it clear over and over (and over) again that her Italian lineage has been a large influence on both her art and life, and it would seem that House of Gucci is what Gaga had been trying to manifest after so many years of telling reporters that she is, in fact, Italian.
So while we wait for House of Gucci, I thought I would collect and rate the moments from Gaga’s career that feel the most distinctly Italiano! Full disclosure, I’m not Italian — but neither is Adam Driver! And at least I have 11 seasons of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and a week of Italian Duolingo from 2014 under my belt. So, miei paisano, grab the olive oil, and let’s head for the country for a very special list, Andiamo!
Talk about Italian Ice! This donna è bellissima!
For her third international single, Gaga debuted her Italian side to the world as a hairbow-clad bambina in the music video for “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say).” Directed by Joseph Kahn, the video finds Gaga roaming around in a 1950s-inspired technicolor Little Italy rife with Italian stereotypes. “Eh, Eh” becomes “Ay, Ay, I’m Walkin ‘Ere!” Gaga gossips with her friends in a pizza shop, sits atop a Vespa, and serves her wifebeater-clad boyfriend a comically large bowl of spaghetti. The whole thing is a sendup of stereotypical Italian culture, done with love by the quintessential modern Italian girl from New York. Though it’s an oft-forgotten entry into Gaga’s videography, it stands as a fan favorite and high on the list of the most Italian things she’s ever done.
(Rating: 8 out of 10 meatballs)
Stefani Germanotta settles the debate on The Sopranos
Looking back, it’s hard to remember a period when The Sopranos wasn’t revered as one of the greatest television shows of all time. But for the first couple years of its air, it was lambasted by many Italian-Americans who felt its depictions of Italian life were offensive, harmful, and yes, even racist. Oh Madonna’Mia, say it ain’t so! This Los Angeles Times op-ed begs readers to consider the harmful stereotypes of white Italian-Americans that the writer felt the show portrayed, comparing it side by side to depictions of actual racism. Hot tip: if you’re a white Italian person who’s writing an opinion piece about being marginalized by the media’s Italian stereotypes, don’t end the article by saying, “wake up and smell the cappuccino.” That’s like me writing an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times calling for an end to Norwegian stereotypes and finishing with, “wake up and smell the lutefisk.”
At just 15 years old, Lady Gaga took a stand and affirmed her stance on The Sopranos as respectable Italian media by appearing as an extra on the show’s third season. As Girl at Swimming Pool #2, Gaga had no lines but laughed it up alongside her fellow extras while smoking prop cigarettes, drinking Coca-Cola, and eating pizza, a famous Italian dish. Though her character was silent, a young Stefani Germanotta was not! By showing up to set, she gave the show her Italian blessing — the blessing of a future Oscar nominee, recognized for a similarly-Italian role in 2018’s A Star is Born.
(Rating: 5 out of 10 meatballs)
Thinkin’ about the Italian cookies…
In the midst of a stripped-down piano rendition of “The Edge of Glory” during her 2011 ABC Thanksgiving Special, A Very Gaga Thanksgiving, Gaga paused to reflect on the song’s meaning and the spirit of the holidays. Wiping away a tear after laying down some gorgeous, crisp vocals, Gaga spoke candidly to her audience:
One of my favorite memories with my grandpa and my grandma around Thanksgiving, and it’s actually leading up to Christmastime, is that they make these cookies called pizzelles. And if you’re Italian, you know what those are. They’re like really flat waffles, they’re really thin and crisp. My grandpa would awlays make the pizzelles and he always worked the machine and everybody had to, “Oh no I got it! Outta the way, outta the way, outta the way!” That was my grandfather’s thing is, he made the- the Pizelles so…I don’t know why but right now, I’m just…thinking about…thinking about the Italian cookies.
It’s a special, sweet moment. Italians are incredibly family-oriented, and Gaga’s family is known to be no exception. “The Edge of Glory” was written about her grandfather’s passing, so it’s no surprise that when recording the special, she was stricken with thoughts of holidays past with the whole family together over a hot pizzelle iron after one too many piccola espressos. This is actually one of my personal favorite Gaga moments, it reminds me of my family getting together to make Norwegian cookies similar to pizzelles, called Krumkake. Every Christmas when my family makes them, I say silently to myself, in Gaga’s same Scorsese-character affectation, “I’m just…thinking about the Italian cookies.”
(Rating: 9 out of 10 meatballs)
“I feel like Cher in that John Patrick Shanley film Moonstruck” — Gaga accepting her Golden Globe, 2015
During the promotional tour for Cheek to Cheek, her first album with fellow legendary Italian musician Tony Bennett, Gaga switched out the platinum blondes and rich brunettes for a collection of jet-black wigs. Inspired by her collaboration with Bennett, which she credited for restoring her love of music-making, Gaga returned to her Italian roots with a mound of black curls, almost as tall as she is (and as we know, she is famously 5’2"). While on her way to put the finishing touches on the album in June 2014, Gaga was photographed by paparazzi outside a studio in New York while posing with fans. “Gaga, I’m loving the afro,” one pap commented. She gave him a sly look and finished taking pictures. Moments later, while walking into the studio, she grazed by and corrected him. “It’s not an afro, it’s Italian curls.”
Cheek to Cheek was Gaga’s moment in the sun to give her version of Cher’s infamous curls from Moonstruck, and give them she did. She wore them so much she almost wore them out — becoming a classic, distinct, ultra-Italian Gaga look in the process.
(Rating: 6 out of 10 meatballs)
A girl went back to Napoli…………
Born This Way, Gaga’s third studio album, included musical and cultural references from around the world. In the span of one record, she speaks German, French, and Spanish alongside her native English. Though she doesn’t incorporate any of her Italian heritage directly, she does interpolate the melody of Rosemary Clooney’s “Mambo Italiano” in the intro to “Americano,” before the song launches into a techno-house, Mariachi-inspired foot-stomper. Three years later, she used the song to score Gagavision 45, which she spent getting fitted for Atelier Versace couture.
(Rating: 2 out of 10 meatballs)
Dona-Tella Me That Was Your Best Versace
Speaking of Versace, Gaga has had a longstanding relationship with the brand’s designer and CEO, Donatella Versace. Donatella is like a mirror version of Gaga…if Gaga was peering into a funhouse mirror that showed what she would look like if she chain-smoked cigarettes every day under the Tuscan sun — which, by the way, is an iconic look. Side by side, they look like they could be mother and daughter. With such a kismet love, Gaga was inspired to write “Donatella” about her friend and mentor. “I would like to thank Gaga for her geniality, creativity, incredible talent, and super bitchiness," Versace told Just Jared in 2013. "I am honoured to be her friend and of course I love the song!” The song — which opens with the lyric, “I am so fab/Check it out, I’m blonde/I’m skinny/I’m rich/And I’m a little bit of a bitch” — was played for Donatella for the first time at an “intimate” birthday party Gaga threw Lady Versace at her parents’ restaurant, Joanne Trattoria. “The best present she could give me,” Versace told Elle later that year. “I loved it and couldn’t stop dancing. I made her play it again and again. The song is insane, over the top, loud, full of energy—everything that I like.”
There are few things on this list that are more Italian than playing a song you wrote for an icon of Italian fashion at that Italian icon’s birthday party being held at your family’s trattoria on the Upper West Side. I hope Donatella had the Beef Osso Bucco.
(9 out of 10 [Joanne’s] Meatballs [which can be ordered at $12 a plate])
Gaga Arrives at the Venice Film Festival on a water taxi
Arriving to the world premiere of your feature film debut calls for not only high glamour but high camp, as well. And when back in the motherland, why not answer the call of flashy Italian stars of the past to serve both in the form of arriving on a water taxi, carrying a single red rose? It’s Gaga channeling the allure and charm of early Sophia Loren, with all of the romantic drama of classic Italian cinema.
I truly believe that if she had been famous enough in 2009, she would have beaten out our girl Fergie for Saraghina, the beach-dwelling vocal powerhouse Italian prostitute in Nine. Maybe we’re lucky Gaga was still in Alexander McQueen armadillos then!
(Rating: 8 out of 10 meatballs)
The spirit of Gaga interrupts an Italian coronavirus press conference to let them know they’re in her heart.
Gaga is always with her people, especially in the most trying of times. During an Italian press conference on the novel coronavirus back in March of 2020, before international lockdowns began, Gaga’s new single, “Stupid Love,” interrupted officials as they spoke on the current state of the severity of the virus. It was a moment of much-needed levity in an increasingly dark time, and described as Gaga as “why [she] makes music.”
(Rating: 3 out of 10 Meatballs)
Gaga in this Rodarte dress
Don’t ask me why, but even though I hate this look, it does feel very Italian to me. Zia Stefani arriving at her niece’s dance recital looks.
(Rating: 2 out of 10 meatballs)
Lady Gaga beats her meat on Alan Carr (sorry)
For a segment on Alan Carr: Chatty Man in 2011, Carr and Gaga devised a cooking tutorial that would allow Gaga to show her skills in the kitchen, something every Italian girl should have in their arsenal! Gaga announces that they’ll be making Chicken Milanese, different from the traditional Veal Milanese (available bone-in at Joanne Trattoria for $28!) but still “a more politically-correct meat.” It starts off smoothly enough, with Carr making bad jokes while Gaga earnestly tries to prepare their dish in the short amount of time allotted by the BBC. But things go awry when Gaga elects to tenderize her meat using the bottom side of her frying pan.
“In Italian households, we usually don’t have these mallet things,” Gaga says, referring to a wooden tenderizer. So instead, she picks up her skillet and pounds away at the slab of raw poultry in front of her, just as Nonna would in the Old Country. I’m not sure how accurate Gaga’s rustic methodology is — in fact, I think most Italian chefs would tell you that having a meat tenderizer on hand is essential. But I have no doubt that Joe and Cynthia Germanotta let young Stefani and Natalie take a whack at a few birds with a pan the while growing up. How else would you prepare to wear meat couture?
(Rating: 8 out of 10 meatballs)
Gaga is honored as an American who is an Italian to be performing in accordance with Roman and Greek traditions because she is Italian.
After performing the Star-Spangled Banner at Superbowl XXIXIVCIXCIXIXVXX or whatever in 2016, Gaga was interviewed by Extra and asked about what the experience was like. After telling the interviewer that she thought about the song’s lyrics — what they meant then, and what they mean now — Gaga made the classic mistake of starting a half-baked thought and walking herself too far into the sentence to stop it. With the gears visibly turning in her head, she continued,
You know, it’s kind of ancient history stuff but you know in, in, you know, the Greek um, and Roman HISTORY uh…performing for the greatest athletes in the world is the highest honor. So, you know I’m Italian and, you know, European, so for me it was just like a such uh, it was such uhhh…honor as an American.
This is very much classic Gaga and classic Italiano, bringing her heritage into something that really doesn’t have much to do with it at all. And it’s really the first time that we’ve ever seen her clearly, immediately regret it because she didn’t have the connection thought out at all. It makes me snort with laughter every time I watch it.
(Rating: 7 out of 10 meatballs)
House of Gucci reigns!
Though the film isn’t scheduled to premiere until November 2021, House of Gucci is undoubtedly set to be Gaga’s most Italian project ever. It is the culmination of all of these moments combined; every “I’m an Italian girl from New York” has been leading up to this.
All we have so far are the internet-breaking photo of her and Driver behind the scenes and a collection of candid paparazzi shots from the set, on-location throughout Italy. But, oh, what a wealth it is already! There’s Gaga in her fur cossack and red leather ski outfit, holding a little espresso cup — Molto Italiano! Gaga in a headscarf and patterned trenchcoat, giving Strega Nona origin story vibes — Super Italiano! Gaga and Driver walking in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo, stopping to have Patrizia Regianni feed Maurizio Gucci una deliziosa pasticceria — Incredibilmente Italiano!
House of Gucci is set to be a venti-sized serving of real-life, hyper-stylish Italian drama with all the things that make Italian cinema so great: fashion, romance, crimes of passion, affairs, food, and Lady Gaga! Even if the film is bad, which we must consider as Ridley Scott productions are liable to land on either side of the fence, it will be camp to the highest degree. And what more can we ask for from a film?
After a dreadful year, under the thumb of the coronavirus, Italy will come back strong with House of Gucci. All I want is for the world to be vaccinated by August so the Venice Film Festival can be the first major festival to take place in-person again, with House of Gucci being one of its big screenings. I can’t imagine a more Italian event than that, the molto grande epicenter of it all! How would Gaga arrive? How could she top her entry on the boat to the festival in August 2018? Would she wear Gucci, Versace, or Valentino? It’s all to be determined, but for now, we await November. And until then, we will devour every glimpse of wig and costume design we can get from set like noted Big & Tall Man Adam Driver eating a pastry. Mangia!