Madonna Manages To Barely Compliment Lady Gaga

Becky Bain | June 12, 2012 11:15 am

Though Lady Gaga has chosen to take the high road in this never-ending Madonna vs. Gaga beef, Madge continues to share her disdain of Gaga — even when she’s attempting to pay her a compliment. The Material Girl recently sat down with Italian magazine Repubblica, and of course no interview could be complete without mentioning her most obvious foil. The reported concluded the Q&A by squeezing in one last Gaga-centric question: “Is Lady Gaga a threat or only another temporary ‘spice girl’?”

First of all, maybe the Italians aren’t aware of the influence of 90s girl power pop, but the Spice Girls are iconic, each and every one of them. A temporary “Pussycat Doll” would’ve been a more appropriate reference point.

Regardless, That Grape Juice reports that Madge replied, “She is an artist with a great, high level of talent.” But we prefer Google’s translation of the original interview:

Closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, holds its breath. Invokes some kind of saints or demons to maintain self-control: “She is an artist with a great talent.”

Besides the Italian-to-English translation turning Madonna into both a man and an inanimate object, it also paints a picture of the pop star desperately trying to bite her tongue from saying anything too damning. This is basically the same attitude she had when she described “Born This Way” as “reductive” during her GMA interview in January, stopping herself from explaining herself further or saying anything else. But just because Madonna’s not offering her full opinion doesn’t mean we can’t pick it up on our own.

We expect Gaga to refrain from commenting, or perhaps comment again that she’s refraining from commenting. What happened to the good ole days when these two would just pull one another’s hair on national TV?