Carly Waddell Recalls How Classmate Lady Gaga Drove Her “Crazy” in College
Photo by Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty Images, Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Reading Time: 3 minutes
Bachelor in Paradise winner Carly Waddell is looking back on the years when she was classmates with pop megastar Lady Gaga. Both of them were college students at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Carly Wadell Revisits College Years with Lady Gaga
During an episode of Trading Secrets podcast, the Bachelor Nation star recounted the rare experience of being classmates with Gaga. Admitting she was “not a fan” of the “Bloody Mary” singer—born Stefani Germanotta—at the time, Waddell stated that Gaga was a nuisance during lunch breaks.
“Stefani used to, during lunch, play on the piano,” she said. “You would eat lunch in a dance studio and there was a piano, and she would sit at the piano every single day and just play and sing Wicked at the top of her lungs every day. And we were all just trying to eat lunch. It was break time, and we were all forced to listen to her.”
While the 38-year-old affirmed Gaga’s exceptionally amazing voice, she said she just wanted peaceful lunch.
“She was great, but I just wanted to eat my sandwich,” she said. “And so, I used to just eat in the hallway because she was driving me crazy.”
Further tapping on her previous feelings, Waddell stated that while Gaga was eccentric even then, she failed to predict the singer’s going to be a superstar.
“She was one of the good ones, but I wouldn’t ever be like, ‘She was so above. But now she’s so above,” she said.
Gaga was 17 years old when she attended the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Particularly, she was granted early admission to the Collaborative Arts Project 2. However, she didn’t finish the program, dropping the same after two years to forge a music career.
She Says Mother Monster was a Fashion Standout Even Then
According to Waddell, Gaga didn’t exactly set herself apart from other students in their elite art program talent-wise. However, she recalled noticing the “Shallow” hitmaker for her peculiar fashion sense.
“She’s so extra,” she said. “She would wear these really tight leotards, and she had really big boobs back then, and her boobs were just like coming out. She’s so ridiculous.”
The Bachelor also stated that Gaga would be good when following their musical theater training. Nonetheless, she would particularly stand out when she was performing her own creative pieces.
“When she played at the NYU talent show, she was singing her own stuff and I was like, ‘You can’t argue, that girl is really good,'” she said. “She was good at everything, but she was better at her own stuff. She was down at the piano, wailing her own tunes.”
Like Gaga, Waddell also dropped out of the program. Looking back, the Bachelor in Paradise winner applauds the “Born This Way” singer for being a “genius.”
“I wasn’t a fan of her at that moment, but I was not my best at that moment either. We both dropped out of the program because we didn’t love the program, and I’m sure she was just as unhappy in it as I was or she would have stayed.”
