Lady Gaga is back and better than ever! After canceling Born This Way Ball world tour in February 2013 due to a severe hip injury and subsequent surgery, the international pop star is now making a comeback, and revealing the latest cover artwork for her new single "Applause" to debut on her upcoming ARTPOP album.
Wrapped in a white sheet, the 27-year-old singer shows off just her face smeared with blue, red, and yellow face paint in the new photograph. The image was taken directly from her "Applause" video shoot (shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin), which will premiere August 19.
"It’s the end of the night after the show," she says describing the image to Women's Wear Daily. "When I look at it I see that there is a longing for the applause. I see that there is a void that is leaking onstage, that the performer is leaking, that the art is sort of becoming something else in front of your eyes. Something more human, something more honest."
The stunning image is just one of the latest reveals the provocative singer has treated fans to since undergoing major surgery to repair a broken hip.
"I had broken my hip. Nobody knew, and I haven’t even told the fans yet," she said to WWD. "But when we got all the MRIs finished before I went to surgery there were giant craters, a hole in my hip the size of a quarter, and the cartilage was just hanging out the other side of my hip. I had a tear on the inside of my joint and a huge breakage. The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer."
Up next, the "Born This Way" singer will debut the new single at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, August 25. ARTPOP hits shelves November 11 through Interscope records.
