Where to begin...

If you live in England you probably saw Lady GaGa on Jonathan Ross. Even if you don't live in England... you probably saw it. It's on youtube. It's a big hot mess. Right from the very first shot of her, brandishing a lilac teacup in her post-it dress, we knew it was going to be a mess.

We've been following Lady GaGa for close to a year, now, and so we feel we've built up a pretty good picture of who she is. We've watched countless interviews, countless performances, countless videos, countless clips of behind the scenes footage. And we're quite honestly confused.

Lady GaGa has been forthright and confident from the beginning. She showed she believed in herself and her abilities from the first time she got mainstream media attention and undoubtedly before that. But the helium-voiced, one-word-answer, fairly humourless robot that appeared on Jonathan Ross seemed like someone completely different. Like the real GaGa had been stolen away and replaced with a PR-trained clone.

It was almost like Ashlee Simpson had dressed up as Lady GaGa and was taking her place for a round of awkward questioning. We exaggerate.

Of course, there are many reasons for this. First of all she may have genuinely been nervous. It was her first sit-down TV interview with a major TV host EVER (we believe) and even really confident people get nervous sometimes. Also, she has been answering the exact same questions that Jonathan Ross posed to her for almost a year now, and if that was boredom we detected in her voice, it was very understandable. Finally, Lady GaGa has gone from being the epitome of artistic credibility (an unusual looking, piano-playing New York club kid with some stomping pop megahits up her sleeve) to being the epitome of mainstream (the biggest new female artist in the world) in a VERY, VERY short amount of time. And even if she set out to be this big, she may not have anticipated the feelings of dread and anxiety that 'artistic' people sometimes get when they suddenly find they have stopped being outrageous and started being the accepted norm.

In short: Lady GaGa MAY be up-playing her pretentious, arty side to compensate for the fact that she has BECOME the mainstream.

Then again: she may be on drugs. Or need an exorcism.

Vids below.