How Lady Gaga's 'Perfect Illusion' Relates to Ex-Fiance Taylor Kinney

Singer opens up about whether her new single is about ex-fiance Taylor Kinney.

ByABC News
October 3, 2016, 2:54 PM

— -- Lady Gaga recently revealed that her latest album is "absolutely" influenced by Taylor Kinney, and now the singer is opening up about her her ex-fiance's connection to the album's first single, "Perfect Illusion."

Since the single's release last month, fans have speculated that the song was some sort of commentary on their broken engagement. The song's chorus goes, "It wasn't love. It was a perfect illusion."

But Gaga told E! News that although her new music is "inspired by my personal life," her new single is not simply about her relationship with Kinney.

"I would just say that my music on my album as well as all my albums is inspired by my personal life and this one more than others," she told E! when asked about the song's meaning. "I have said it before -- I love Taylor so much and he's my best friend."

Instead, Gaga said "Perfect Illusion" -- and her stripped-down, raw video that accompanies it -- is really about love in the digital age.

"This video is a performance of a song that I wrote of that moment about how I feel, but how I'm sure he's felt sometimes, how you have felt sometimes, how other people feel in relationships, how I see my friends struggle and become just full of rage and anger as they try to figure out how to date during a time when everybody's sort of creating these perfect illusions of themselves on the internet and nobody really knows what's real and what isn't," she explained. "It's about all of that."

Her intention with the video, she said, was to strip away any illusions.

"Nothing was choreographed," she told E! News. "I didn't rehearse any of those things that you see in the video. Everything in that was just completely in the moment -- pure, raw performance of how I feel.

"It's so beautiful in that way," she added, "I love that opening shot in the video when it's just a silent light pouring through the hands of the fans as they're all dancing and nobody has a cell phone in their hands and everybody's got a little dirt on them and it's something that we don't do anymore."

Gaga is hoping to recapture some of that intimacy with her fans when she makes stops at dive bars across the country, starting Wednesday, to perform songs from her new album. The singer is partnering with Bud Light, which will air concerts from her Dive Bar Tour on its Facebook page.