He helped transform her from a painfully shy teenager to a world superstar – and as Lady Gaga prepares to launch new album Artpop, he should be basking in glory. But instead, music manager Bob Leone, who also set Lana Del Rey on her path to fame, is broke and homeless, forced to move back in with his frail 88-year-old mother.
He claims that Gaga, 27, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, left him ruined – failing to reward him after he helped land her first major record deal.
And he says his grievances against the flamboyant New York-born singer has been taken up by Del Rey, who has blasted Gaga in a string of sharp-tongued lyrics.
The jibes, which appear in the lyrics of her new song So Legit, include: ‘Stefani, you suck, I know you’re selling 20?million. Wish they could have seen you when we booed you off in Williamsburg.’
Leone says the lyrics reflect Lana’s fury at the way Gaga and her father Joe failed to reward him.
‘She was very upset at the way I had been treated,’ he said. ‘We’ve spoken about it. She feels it wasn’t right.’
Leone, 64, discovered Gaga at the Triad Theatre, Manhattan, in 2000, when he was National Project Director at the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The young Stefani, then just 14, attended several of his songwriting workshops. He said: ‘She was painfully shy back then. When she came to one of my open mic sessions with her mother, she’d just look at the floor and her feet’.
‘I went over to her and said, “Stefani, I know why you feel intimidated, as everyone is older in here, but promise me when you come back next week, I want you to get up on stage and hear what you got.”
‘And she did. That’s when I knew that she was going to be a superstar. Although I never knew she would be this popular and more recognisable than Obama and Oprah’.
‘I asked when she was only 17, “What do you want as a creative person, to be known for great songwriting?” She looked me in the eye and without hesitation said, “I want world domination.’”
At the time, Leone held showcases at a Manhattan venue, inviting acts from across the US to perform in front of top record company bosses. He put his young starlet Stefani on the bill in front of record executive Wendy Starland.
Impressed, Starland was keen to pair Stefani with Rob Fusari, who went on to co-produce Gaga’s debut album The Fame.
The pair recorded a demo and Stefani signed a record deal just months later in September 2006. It was at this point that Leone stopped playing an active role in her career.
But he claims promises made just before this major breakthrough, in the six months when he was officially working as Gaga’s manager, were never kept, mainly due to the involvement of her father, Joe.
Leone said: ‘She [Gaga] said to her dad he could be her business manager, but she wanted me as her manager as she wanted to sign with a major label.
‘I was happy to then stand aside, glad I could help, but Joe never forgave me for being her manager.
‘He despised me for accepting the offer to manage her. When I asked for a contract, he constantly came up with excuses why not, which went on for a couple of months, but he said, “I give you my word, you’ve been into my house, when you get her the major record deal, you will be fairly compensated.”
Leone’s row with Gaga’s father reignited in 2010 when, struggling for cash, he decided to auction off a collection of unreleased CDs and recordings that the pair had made when she was a teenager.
Within hours her legal team had quashed the release and threatened Leone. ‘Some of this music dated back to when she was 15. I thought it was maybe worth a lot. But as soon as it was made public, their lawyer called me.
Now broke, Leone reveals he may one day be forced to sell the only letter he has from Gaga in a bid to raise more cash after leaving his Manhattan home.
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