Lady Gaga auditioned to be Mika’s opening act pre-fame.
The Grace Kelly hitmaker, 42, has revealed that long before the Born This Way hitmaker was a global megastar, the 39-year-old singer pulled out all the stops to try to impress him and his team, in a bid to be part of his low-key tour.
Mika – who recently released the album Hyperlove – told the Daily Star newspaper: “She came to all my concerts. It’s crazy. And then I would go to all her concerts. She came to an in-store and once we were sitting in a cafe called the Earth Cafe in LA. I was working on the second album, she was drinking a coffee, Stephanie Germanotta, not as Lady Gaga.
“We talked, and she came at the beginning to audition to be the opening act. She managed to find one of my managers, and she arrived with a bag and out of her bag was a smoke machine, and a light machine in a ball shape that put out beams of different colours; and she put on a show and auditioned.”
As it happens, Gaga never ended up working for Mika.
Both stars are connected in that they have huge LGBTQ+ fan bases.
Gaga started playing piano at the age of four and was performing in bars and small venues by her teens, taking on paid gigs long before she ever landed a record deal. She also picked up extra income on the New York club circuit, appearing in burlesque shows and gay bars as she honed her early-stage persona.
Elsewhere, Mika said of his latest record: “It’s sort of hyper romance that isn’t at all melodramatic. There isn’t a single moment on the album that is Saccharine. Because it’s (about) burning love, it’s almost unsettling love.”