There's officially no love lost between Lady Gaga and Perez Hilton. Once close friends, the pop superstar, 27, and the blogger, 35, are locked in a bitter, intense public feud after the "Applause" singer claimed via Twitter that Hilton was stalking her.
The fracas began the afternoon of Sunday, August 18, when a Gaga fan (a "little monster") tweeted that Hilton (real name: Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr.) was inside the "Applause" singer's NYC apartment building; Hilton and his infant son had recently relocated from Los Angeles to the Big Apple, and were checking out apartments in the building.
After tweeting various requests from her NYC-based followers to confirm the veracity of the story, Gaga then put her former pal on blast, tweeting at him: "STAY AWAY FROM ME + MY FAMILY YOU ARE SICK TRYING TO RENT AN APARTMENT IN MY BUILDING TO STALK ME. LEAVE ME ALONE!!"
The Grammy winner, in the midst of promoting her upcoming new album ArtPop, continued in her rant, claiming that Hilton posed a physical threat: "DO I NEED TO BE SHOT IT IN THE HEAD FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT HIM AND EVERYONE ELSE THAT HARASSES ME HAS GONE TOO FAR? IM A HUMAN BEING."
About a half an hour later, a slightly calmer Gaga wrote, "I just want to make music+make people smile. Im sorry to all the fans who are trying to enjoy whats suppose to be a happy time. Gone too far."
Hilton then gave his own version of events via his website, explaining that his move to NYC was long in the works — and that his visit to Gaga's apartment building was pure coincidence. He also insisted that he's not a "stalker" but a "critic." Said Hilton: "I love New York and that is where me and my growing family want to call home right now. Sunday, my realtor showed us a list of possible apartments to rent. I learned only after the fact that Lady GaGa lives in one of the buildings we looked at, and she was across the country in Los Angeles when I viewed that building. After a day of innocent house-hunting, I am devastated and my heart hurts that my former very good friend, a person I used to call my 'wifey' and traveled the world with, is making very public and very untrue allegations about me on Twitter," he said.
"While it is still too painful for me to go into detail about why I chose to no longer make her a part of my life, I will say that I am a critic and not a 'stalker'. Any allegation that I am stalking her, based on a day of house hunting with my baby boy and my mother, is utterly false, defamatory and now appears to be putting me and my family in danger. I will continue to be a critic – in a way that is not mean or involves name-calling, and I will continue to have an opinion and talk about music and songs, like GaGa's 'Applause'."
"Notwithstanding my feelings about our personal relationship, I do wish Lady GaGa happiness and continued success and I assure you my family house hunting has nothing to do with her," he concluded.
Hilton also addressed Gaga directly during a vicious back and forth on Twitter. "Maybe one day I'll talk about the hurt you caused me and many others. I'm still healing, removing your knife from my heart," he claimed. "Not only were you #cruel to people who worked for you, friends of mine, but you also purposefully tried to sabotage other artists. The REAL Lady GaGa is very VERY different from the one you pretend to be publicly. And that's the truth, on my dead dad's grave!!!"
