With just about the whole country in the grips of Gaga fever, we uncover a few little known facts about the eccentric pop star.

I am a real family girl. I’m also very Italian. I call my parents every day. When it comes to love and loyalty, I’m very old-fashioned. I am quite down-to-earth for such an eccentric person.

I am very much like my mother. She would do her hair every morning and get dressed nice(ly). So most of the time (as a teenager) I would stay up all night, straightening my hair, and I would even put on make-up before bed sometimes, so that when I woke up in the mornings I would be ready for school. I just like being glamorous. It made me feel like a star.

It wasn’t until I put my music out in the world that I was able to look into myself. (At school) I was teased for being ugly, having a big nose, being annoying…This huge wound had been inside of me for so long, and I had buried it in a cycle of unhappiness with myself and looked outward to fix it, to numb it. My fans forced me to respond to it.

My little monsters (fans) are kings and queens, and they write the history of our kingdom. I am just something of a devoted Jester.

Being myself in public was very difficult when I first catapulted into the spotlight (in 2009). I was being poked and probed. It was like I was being bullied by music lovers, because they couldn’t possibly believe that I was genuine.

There is this assumption that women in music and pop culture are supposed to act a certain way. Because I’m just sort of module fingers up, a-blazing, doing what my ‘artistic voice tells me to do, I’m often misunderstood. The truth is, the mystery and the magic are my art. You are fascinated with precisely the thing you are trying to analyse.

Gaga is scheduled to perform at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Friday and at the Cape Town Stadium on December 3.

Article courtesy of Marie Claire magazine, South Africa.  Compiled by Eulogi Rheeder. Sources Rollingstone.com, Vogue.com, Harpersbazaar.com, Timeout.com, Popdust.com and Vanityfair.com. First published in the November issue of Marie Claire magazine now available digitally on Zinio.com.