What happens when you criticize Lady Gaga? You get death threats from her fans. You can ask Kelly Osbourne all about it! But even lesser-known people find themselves at the claws of the Little Monsters. Take, for example, Chicago-based musician Rebecca Francescatti. Francescatti filed a lawsuit against Lady Gaga (along with her record company, DJ White Shadow, and sound engineer Brian Joseph Gaynor) in 2011 for alledgedly ripping off her song "Juda" when they recorded Gaga’s "Judas." Now, Francescatti is getting death threats from Gaga’s fans.
"She was afraid," said Christopher Niro, an attorney with Niro, Haller & Niro, who is representing Francescatti. "As for the Little Monsters, I see no difference between the way they are acting and the hiring of thugs to intimidate a witness."
Instead of cowering, Niro said, Francescatti, whose stage name is Rebecca F, "channeled her feelings" by incorporating many of the nasty messages in a YouTube video and song titled"I Don’t Believe in Monsters."
Francescatti’s attorney said she took screen shots of comments on social media and put them together in a kind of collage to accompany the song.
One reads, “Watch you back everytime u step out of ur house Rebecca, cuz you might never be able to go home ever again.”
“This Rebecca trick needs to go somewhere and die,” and “death to Rebecca Francescatti and her family” other posters on YouTube allegedly wrote.
Someone started the “ANTI Rebecca Francescatti” Facebook page, where one user allegedly commented “To answer your question of who this pig is, well no one knows her so she’s invisible to the world.”
Their attacks, said Niro, fly in the face of Gaga’s musical campaign against bullying.
"Lady Gaga is silent when her fans bully others on her behalf," he said.
It’s quite possible, of course, that Francescatti is overreacting (the Facebook page in question has 19 likes) and instead taking advantage of the free publicity for the attention. But still, Lady Gaga’s outspoken fans have certainly never learned that bullying applies to straight ladies, too, and Gaga has never made much of an effort to tell her Little Monsters to chill out. (It’s a little off-brand for her, I suppose.)
In case it’s been a while, take another listen to Lady Gaga’s "Judas" below, and then listen to the sample of Rebecca F’s "Juda." Do they sound at all similar to you?
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