Aunt saved Lady Gaga from drugs

Feb 7, 2010, 13:04 GMT

Lady Gaga- Fame Pictures, Inc - Santa Monica, CA, USA

Lady Gaga was saved from cocaine addiction by the spirit of her dead aunt.

The eccentric star has revealed her life spiralled into a world of heavy drug use in a bid to replicate the lifestyles of her musical idols.

The 'Paparazzi' singer would lock herself in her bedroom and snort "bags and bags" of cocaine for songwriting inspiration when she was starting out, but realised she was jeopardising her life when she recalled her aunt Joanne who died at 19.

Gaga - real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - said: "I thought I was going to die. I wanted to be the artists I loved, like Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, and I thought the only way to do it was to live the lifestyle. My cocaine soundtrack was always The Cure. I would lock myself in my room and listen to 'Never Enough' on repeat while I did bags and bags of cocaine.

"But then I realised my father's sister Joanne, who died at 19, had instilled her spirit in me. She was a painter and a poet - and I had a spiritual vision I had to finish her business."

The 23-year-old pop beauty - who began experimenting with cocaine and the hallucinogenic drug LSD after she dropped out of her course at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts when she was 20 - insists her late auntie is still a huge influence on her career.

Gaga - who won two Grammys last weekend - added in new biography 'Lady Gaga: Just Dance: The Biography' by Helia Phoenix: "I never met her, but she's been one of the most important figures in my life."