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A former personal assistant is suing Lady Gaga for unpaid overtime. The New York Post reports:
Long Islander Jennifer O’Neill endured 13 long months as the domineering diva’s personal assistant — and claims she’s owned hundreds of thousands of dollars for the bad romance.
O’Neill, 41, says she had to cater to the 25-year-old pop superstar’s every whim, at every hour of the day and night, handling her schedule, finances and food. She accompanied Gaga on her 2010 Monster Ball world tour. The Garden City gal could barely muster a poker face while “ensuring the promptness of a towel following a shower and serving as a personal alarm clock to keep [Gaga] on schedule,” according to court papers. Gaga was a drag, demanding service everywhere — at her Upper West Side duplex, as well as in “stadiums, private jets, fine hotel suites, yachts, ferries, trains and tour buses.” There were no breaks for meals “or, at times, even sleep,” and O’Neill was required to be on hand for anything the Grammy Award-winning singer needed, at her “earliest waking hour” or for “spontaneous, random matters in the middle of the night,” O’Neill says in court papers. Part of O’Neill’s $75,000-a-year job was “ensuring the availability of chosen outfits” — no small task considering her boss is best known for wearing a meat dress to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and dressing like a “human condom” for a February appearance on “Good Morning America.” O’Neill’s Gaga gripes are part of a lawsuit she filed in Manhattan federal court last week against the superstar’s Mermaid Touring company for $380,000 in unpaid overtime. Her claims don’t appear to be unique. Another former personal assistant, Angela Ciemny, was required to sleep with Gaga most nights because the needy diva refused to be alone, according to the book “Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga.” Ciemny, who had worked for Gaga in 2009, said she and the “Born This Way” singer sometimes did their makeup together and would even hop in the shower at the same time.
Far be it from me to defend Lady Gaga for anything, but other than the sleeping and showering thing, this doesn’t sound that different from any other touring outfit — and this woman got paid better than most personal assistants do for the same job, so I’m not sure why she’s crying about this. Considering it’s Lady Gaga, the only truly surprising part of this lawsuit is that it wasn’t for plagiarism.
