Lady Gaga: ‘My integrity is much more important than sales’

Lady Gaga has insisted that her “integrity as a musician” is far more important to her than commercial success.

The singer also admitted that disagreements with her management “affected” her mind during the making and promotion of her ARTPOP album, in 2013.

Speaking about her split from long-term manager, Troy Carter, Gaga told Associated Press: “It certainly affected my mind during ARTPOP. I would have to say that whole situation had less to do with creativity differences and more to do with me really needing some time from myself to be creative.

“My schedule was way too difficult,” she continued. “I was not able to keep up and my whole business became very focused on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible, which is really not where my heart is. My integrity as a musician is so much more important to me than money.”

Gaga added that she is still “very proud” of ARTPOP, despite the album’s somewhat disappointing sales figures and the criticism it drew from some fans and music journalists.

On the criticism, she said: “I think a lot of that had to with where I am in my career, I’ve been on top for a long time, I think it’s the nature of this industry – we love to build them up to tear them down.”

Meanwhile, Gaga also teased fans with an update on her next album, saying that it is in “the very super early stages”.

The Applause singer recently joined Queen and Adam Lambert on stage in Australia – see pictures from their performance here.

Meanwhile, Jessie J has revealed that she would love to collaborate with Gaga to get an insight into how the Poker Face singer thinks – read the full story here.