Meet Lady Gaga’s Male Alter Ego, Jo Calderone

On July 1st photos of “Jo Calderone” began circulating the internet. Everyone noticed right away that this man looks a lot like Lady Gaga. By that we mean, it IS Lady Gaga. Jo Calderone is the male alter-ego of Lady Gaga. New pictures:

Joanne is Gaga’s middle name and the name of her beloved aunt who passed away after battling lupus. Gaga dedicates each show to her.  Jo even has a twitter feed, though its unclear who runs it, clearly somebody with a high tolerance for Perez Hilton.

Photographer Nicola Formichetti snapped these pics for Vogue Hommes Japan 5 and has published an excerpt from that interview (due on newsstands September 10th) on his blog:

JO CALDERONE – INTERVIEW

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Palermo, Sicily

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO / YOUR OCCUPATION?
Mechanic for my dad’s business. This is the first time I’ve had my picture taken.

WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER YOU WANTED TO TO THIS?
Well, I always helped my dad at work, since I was a kid. I thought it would be fun to have my picture taken.

WHAT ARE YOUR AMBITIONS?
I’d love to own my own car shop, I have a bunch of my own ‘muscle’ cars. Maybe if I take some more pictures I can afford it.

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO LADY GAGA?
I met her at a shoot Nick Knight was doing. She’s fuckin beautiful, and funny, and interesting. I was a little nervous for Nick to start shooting. She said, “Don’t be baby, you were “born this way.” I took her out after. The rest is private ;)

INTERVIEW BY JO-ANN FURNISS

Soooo… clearly WE LOVE THIS. For starters, it’s trademark Gaga — most notably, the Warholian meta-comment on the commerce of fame — “if I let you take my picture, then I can afford to fund my true life passions.”

For seconders, we’re always big fans of gender-bending, cross-dressing and drag, as evidenced by our obsessive cataloging evident in our galleries of girls in menswear, androgyny, genderqueer & transmen and alternative lifestyle haircuts.

For thirds, there is a lot of JO/es happening here. We’ve got the intentionally related Jo/es of Gaga’s middle name, her aunt and her male alter-ego, obviously, and ON TOP OF THAT the interviewer just so happens to be named Jo-Ann Furniss! What are the chances. In fact, there are so many JO/es going on here that it made us think of two other Jos:

Joan of Arc, who’s pretty much the most famous cross-dresser of all time:

….and Jo March, the lead character of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. An inspiration to many young literary tomboys, Jo lamented: “It’s bad enough to be a girl anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!”

WINONA RYDER AS JO MARCH IN “LITTLE WOMEN”

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Nick Knight, the photographer noted as being present for the ‘meeting’ of Gaga and Jo, is responsible for much of the Monster Ball’s video imagery and recently shot Lady Gaga for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Two more shots from that issue have surfaced:

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3271 articles for us.

24 Comments

  1. I love Hayley Williams so thanks for posting that interview. I don’t particularly care for Tegan and Sara’s music but I always find them interesting every time they open their mouths. I guess you could say I’m a fan of their personalities but not their songs.

  2. i think im gonna write a song about Sara’s new haircut

    heres 2 lines from it (to the tune of back in your head)
    i just want the hair back on your head
    im not hatin i just care
    im learnin to love your brand new hair
    im not hatin i just care

  3. I <3 both T+S and Hayley Williams so bad! I wanted to see their co-headlining tour, but the tix were too expensive :( That's all. I guess I don't have anything real constructive.

    Oh, and "Joe Calderone" is super hot.

  4. Isn’t it just Jo Calderone, not Joe? What’s with the variability in spelling?

    But, awesome.

  5. yes please, jo calderone. yes, yes please.

    on another note, NO ONE TOLD ME that winona ryder was in Little Women IN MENSWEAR. no one. i thought i had friends.

  6. A little flirting going on from 2:20-2:32 in the first T & S/Hayley Williams video.Very cute indeed.

  7. yo guys i know jo calderone is super hot, like no joke, but i think you guys might be interested in knowing Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman just said he is in-fact gi-zzay. there is self loathing in the air.

    /back to fawning

    • I was going to say that, I watched the interview and all I wanted to do was feed Sara hot lemon and honey and tell her to stop talking to protect her poor throat :(

  8. I had hoped Lohan wouldn’t get off easy and yet here we are. My hopes and dreams are crushed. Damn.

    It’s about time Gaga did something like this. I absolutely love it. She’s so hot, man or woman.

  9. holy geez, has anyone been on a tour bus with no air conditioning? it’s the 7th layer of hell. that hayley be crazy.

  10. So ummm just noticed Heather P. wrote. I know she tours with them Sick of Sarah ladies, no? I think I’ve seen you in their FB piics. Correct me if I’m wrong. :D

    …yeah, you can tell I’m a fan.

    :D

  11. I don’t think I’ve ever found a butch-presenting woman that hot before, but the swagger speaks to me. I want to have her AND be her!

  12. Agreed with Iphis, I’m not usually into this type, but something about Jo Calderone/Gaga is just really, *really* hot.

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