Gaga's Bad Romance

It looks like Lady Gaga’s bad romance has caught up to her. Back during March 18 of 2010, music producer Rob Fusari filed a $30 million lawsuit against Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga’s real name) demanding a 20 percent cut from Germanotta’s two companies Team Love Child and Mermaid Music. Fusari says he entered into a contract with Germanotta’s in 2006 that promised him a portion of her merchandising and revenue. He claims that he helped develop her into an artist and co-wrote several songs, including “Paparazzi” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich.”

Want to know why they say never mix business with pleasure? Well, Fusari and Germanotta also shared a romantic relationship, but it ended in January 2007. The lawsuit says their relationship had gone south by then and he has been denied a 20 percent share of song royalties, 15 percent of merchandising revenue and other money he's owed.

“All business is personal,” the suit says. “When those personal relationships evolve into romantic entanglements, any corresponding business relationship usually follows the same trajectory so that when one crashes they all burn. This is what happened here.”

Two days later on Mach 20, Germanotta responded to the lawsuit claiming Fusari took advantage of her as an inexperienced artist. She and her lawyers accused Fusari of forcing Germanotta into an unlawful contract, because he was not a licensed agent.

Lady Gaga’s popularity resembles that of Madonna. Time may have passed, but talent is talent. Consumers of the media know what they enjoy watching. Fusari is making a drastic claim that it the sole foundation of the artist and performer of Lady Gaga exists because of him. Many artists have attributed their accomplishments to past individuals or experiences. This makes me wonder, if Fusari created “Lady Gaga,” doesn’t he have a right to claim her image as her creator? Or, think of it this way, if a writer created a lovable audience character and corporations wanted to market that character, if he did not give his rights up, doesn’t the writer have a right to that character? Not all the facts of the case have been public, but I am very interested to see how this case turns out.

Here is more information about the case:

Entertainment Weekly and Yahoo

---MONA