Lady Gaga is the kind of famous where even my lovely grandmother has heard of her. That’s only true for a handful of artists who have released albums since The Beatles broke up (Taylor Swift and Beyoncé also fall into the grandma category). But 20-something years ago, Lady Gaga was New York University student Stefani Germanotta, and the likelihood of her becoming as popular as she is now was slim. There was even a Facebook group started by her fellow NYU classmates called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous.” Oops!
According to Stereogum, Gaga commented on an Instagram post about the closed Facebook group, which has 12 members (or one fewer member than Gaga has Grammys). “Some people I went to college w made this way back when,” she wrote, adding three clapping hands emojis. “this is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down — gotta keep going.”
If only they knew someday their classmate would play Harley Quinn.
Lady Gaga recently revealed that she has a new album, her seventh, coming out in February 2025. She also confirmed that she and boyfriend Michael Polansky got engaged in April “after a day of rock climbing.” Hopefully there wasn’t a “Stefani Germanotta you will never go rock climbing” group, too. That would be embarrassing.