Lady Gaga Was 'Ridiculous' in College, According to Former Bachelor Star From Arlington

The Bachelor alum, budding recording artist and Arlington native Carly Waddell recently discussed her time at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts during her appearance on Jason Tartick’s Trading Secrets podcast. During the conversation, she talked about crossing paths with another famous classmate: acclaimed performance artist Lady Gaga.
Waddell explained that during her time in the musical theater program at Tisch, she and several other students apparently found Lady Gaga (then known by her real name, Stefani Germanotta) annoying. She recalls instances when she and her friends would eat lunch in the school’s dance studio, only to be subjected to Lady Gaga playing the piano and singing showtunes.

Many may look at this theater major’s behavior and call it “rehearsing.” Some may even consider a room that has a piano in it intended for that sort of thing. To Waddell and her friends, however, it was apparently the pinnacle of bad taste.

“It was break time and we were forced to listen to her,” Waddell said on the podcast. “And, yes, was she good? Of course! She was great, but I just wanted to eat my sandwich.”

We weren’t students at Tisch in the early 2000s, but we’re going to go out on a limb and assume she could’ve easily had her sandwich somewhere else.

Waddell later went on to emphasize that Lady Gaga was not any more talented than their peers in the program and called her sense of fashion at the time “ridiculous.” Remember, this is coming from a woman whose claim to fame is being on The Bachelor.

For something that came to light on a podcast called Trading Secrets, this tea sure is lukewarm. It’s been known for years now that Lady Gaga’s Tisch classmates didn’t like her. There are even reports of a Facebook group that existed at the time called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous.”

The singer has since been open about the bullying she was subjected to in both high school and college and has said she used it as inspiration for her Oscar-nominated performance in A Star Is Born.

While there’s nothing that firmly suggests Waddell was a direct participant in this bullying, her coming on a podcast 20 years after the fact and regurgitating that same stale gossip about Stefani Germanotta being a weirdo who wasn’t even that good is not the fun anecdote she thinks it is.

Lady Gaga has since gone on to break three Guinness World Records, one as the most downloaded artist of the year (in 2009). She has four singles that hit the 10-million mark in sales and 15 songs that hit No. 1, and she has earned 13 Grammys, two Golden Globes and one Oscar.

Congratulations to Waddell, though, on the five songs she has on Spotify. To honor her, we will find a quiet place to eat a sandwich instead of listening to them.