Not so fast, Little Monsters! Lady Gaga revealed in a new interview that her latest single, “Perfect Illusion,” isn’t about ex-fiancé Taylor Kinney despite the disco-rock tune’s cryptic lyrics.
“I love Taylor so, so much,” the 30-year-old singer said on SiriusXM’s “Radio Andy” on Monday, September 12. “This song is not a hit out against Taylor. He’s my best friend. This song is just about, I’m sure, not only feelings I’ve had but feelings he’s had, that my friends have had, that my sister has in her relationship. It’s a record about all of us, and I would never use my song or want to use the public to hurt anyone that I love so much. … We’re just two people figuring it out.”
The Golden Globe winner further explained, “The record is about being so intoxicated with love, so high [and] dilated, falling free in a modern ecstasy that you wake up one day and you can’t believe that it was not real. How did that happen? How did I do that? The song is sort of raging against that experience. I think also it’s really hard for people to date today, you know, online and with the way that the world is, you just never really know who you’re meeting, and everybody’s got this perfect illusion of themselves that they’re trying to live up to.”
The entertainer released “Perfect Illusion,” the lead single off her forthcoming fifth album, on September 9. The Bruce Springsteen–esque track features lyrics such as “Mistaken for love / It wasn’t love / It was a perfect illusion / You were a perfect illusion.” (The song also appeared in a trailer for season 6 of American Horror Story.)
Earlier this summer, Gaga and Kinney, 35, separated after five years together. She later clarified that the split may only be temporary. “Taylor and I have always believed we are soulmates,” she wrote via Instagram on July 20. “Just like all couples we have ups and downs, and we have been taking a break. We are both ambitious artists, hoping to work through long-distance and complicated schedules to continue the simple love we have always shared. Please root us on. We’re just like everybody else and we really love each other.”
A source exclusively told Us Weekly last month that the Chicago Fire actor “really hopes they’ll get back together.”
Gaga’s fifth album, which was produced entirely by Mark Ronson and is her first solo LP since 2013’s ARTPOP, is due out later this year.
