Lady Gaga Sued By Former Personal Assistant For $380,000

Becky Bain | December 27, 2011 11:53 am

Living the life of the globe-trotting, never-resting Lady Gaga is no easy task — and it appears her personal assistants have got it even worse. As it turns out, signing up to be at the beck and call of one of the world’s busiest pop stars does not lead to as glamorous a daily life as you might expect, as Gaga’s former assistant, Jennifer O’Neill, is suing the pop star for $380,000 in more than 7,000 hours of unpaid overtime.

41-year-old O’Neill worked for Mother Monster for 13 months, and flew around the world with her on her 2010 Monster Ball tour. She made $75,000 a year, which may sound like a decent paycheck, but O’Neill alleges that she was not given breaks for meals or sleep, and that she had to cater to any task, project or flight of fancy that would magically pop into Gaga’s head, day and night.

And what were some of these responsibilities? The Hollywood Reporter cites just a few tasks — making sure Gaga was promptly given a towel after a shower; acting as a “personal alarm clock” to make sure she was always on schedule; making sure the pop star had “the availability of chosen outfits” for all her various appearances. (All of these insane outfits don’t appear out of thin air!) But when you’re Lady Gaga’s personal assistant, we’re sure there’s much, much more to your job — brushing the hair of all the Lady’s wigs throughout the night, scrubbing stage blood out of costumes, constant ego-stroking, things like that.

A spokeswoman for Gaga has branded the lawsuit “completely without merit.” Though we agree that it sounds like O’Neill was overworked for the amount of money she was paid — what did she expect when she signed up to work for Gaga, a 9 to 5 desk job? Handling craziness is part of the job.

[Via THR]

Tags: