Lou Rocco/ABC
Lady Gaga might not have been a close personal friend of Amy Winehouse, but she was deeply saddened by the singer's death. On Monday's The View, Gaga, 25, revealed her sadness at Amy's passing -- and talked about how she avoids the self-destructive aspects of fame. Watch the video below.
"I'm just so devastated and so sad," Gaga told the ladies of The View, "and I really couldn't speak for like, 48 hours straight, I was in such shock."
She went on to say that she hates the way the media has tried to turn Winehouse's death into a morality tale. "I think the most unfortunate thing about it all is the way that the media spins things, like, 'We can learn from Amy's death,'" she said. "I don't feel that Amy needed to learn any lessons. I felt that the lesson was for the world to be kinder to the superstar. Everybody was so hard on her, and everything that I knew about her was that she was the most lovely and nice and kind woman."
As Barbara Walters smartly pointed out during the interview, Gaga herself knows a few things about the pressures of superstardom. Gaga admitted that fame can be "a very lonely life," but said that she herself has learned to "treasure the loneliness." She also believes Winehouse's sadness was a big part of her music.
"I think that that's part of what we love about her," said Gaga. "You can't have it both ways: You can't enjoy listening to someone sing sad songs about the blues and heartbreak, and expect them not to be truly heartbroken."
And then there's the issue of drug and alcohol addiction, which has always been so common among rock stars. Gaga, who has admitted to using cocaine in the past, swears that she stopped using hard drugs after her father called her out about it.
"My dad was like, 'I know what you're doing, and just so you know, I did, and I lost every friend and everything I ever had when I did it,'" Gaga recalled. "He shared with me his life story and his struggle, and honestly it changed my life."
It's a lesson that she hopes her "Little Monsters" will take to heart.
"There's a way to be recreational and rebellious, and be young and have a good time, without hurting yourself," said Gaga. And hopefully, thanks to Lady Gaga's example, fewer music fans will have to learn that lesson the hard way.
