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Lady Gaga Shares a “Bill Romance” with the Clintons

Lady Gaga got caught up in a “Bill Romance” at the celebratory concert for the Clintons this weekend.

This Saturday, celebrities flocked to the Decade of Difference concert at the Hollywood Bowl to celebrate Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday and the 10-year milestone of the Clinton Foundation. There were plenty of crowd-thrilling surprises for the evening, including Usher having a wardrobe malfunction and a sneak encore from The Edge and Bono. But what had bloggers gossiping and Twitter abuzz was an unexpected performance by the always-surprising Lady Gaga.

Many bloggers and reporters have compared Lady Gaga’s personalized presidential performance to Marilyn Monroe’s now-famous “Happy Birthday” song to JFK.

Hollywood’s blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe arrived fashionably late to John F. Kennedy’s 1962 birthday bash, donning sparkling jewels and a white fur. When she got to the microphone, she crooned to the president her own swooning, sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday” and astonished the crowd.

But this weekend, Lady Gaga put her own Gaga spin on her “Marilyn moment” by changing the words of her hit tracks “Bad Romance” to “Bill Romance” and “You and I” to “Bill and I” in honor of the former president.

Gaga has been known to channel Marilyn Monroe into her musical work. A verse from her song “Government Hooker” in fact, seems to reference the alleged hush-hush affair between Marilyn and JFK. The show was a dream come true for Gaga, who said she’d been waiting for her “Marilyn moment,” according to the Associated Press.

For the special occasion, Lady Gaga wore a tan sheath dress and switched into a retro-looking golden gown with elbow-length gloves and even a faux beauty mark that solidified her look reminiscent of the famous blonde sex symbol.

“I always wanted to have one, and I was hoping that it didn’t involve pills and a strand of pearls,” she said.

She even included former first lady, Hillary, and daughter Chelsea, by crooning a revised intro to “You and I” with the lyrics, “Hillary, sit back down where you belong / In the office, with those high heels on. Sit back down where we watched you charm the whole world and the country.”
 
She even added the line, “There’s something about this place / Something about America / When a Clinton makes us all feel safe / Something about a cool Arkansas guy / There’s something about Bill-ary, that’s your new celebrity name. To the Clintons, you and I.”

And what did Bill think of it? Evidently, he was let in on the idea before the big night, but he was still anxious.

“How cool is it to be 65 and you get Lady Gaga, come on?” he said. “And then I wondered
 she said she was going to have a Marilyn moment, I thought, ‘By God I get Lady Gaga and I will have a heart attack celebrating my 65th birthday.’”

Alexandra is a graduate from the University of New Hampshire and the current Assistant Digital Editor at Martha Stewart Living. As a journalism student, she worked as the Director of UNH’s Student Press Organization (SPO) and on staff for four student publications on her campus. In the summer of 2010, she studied abroad at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, in England, where she drank afternoon tea and rode the Tube (but sadly no, she did not meet Prince Harry). Since beginning her career, her written work has appeared in USA Today College, Huffington Post, Northshore, and MarthaStewart.com, among others. When not in the office, she can be found perusing travel magazines to plan her next trip, walking her two dogs (both named Rocky), or practicing ballet. Chat with her on Twitter @allie_churchill.