Lady Gaga Deposition: Ex-Assistant Claims Star Forced Her to Sleep In Bed with Her
Last week, Lady Gaga’s ex-assistant Jennifer O’Neill, 42, filed suit in a Manhattan Court with claims that she is owed almost $400,000 in back over-time pay. During the deposition hearing, the two got into a heated argument resulting in Gaga referring to O’Neill as a“f------ hood rat.” More alleged details emerge from O’Neill, that Gaga also forced her to sleep with her in the same bed.
“I was by her side virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week”, O'Neill said. “That includes sleeping in the same bed with her. Because she never slept alone.”
O’Neill revealed that she had no privacy while touring with Gaga and strict rules prohibited her from seeing family and friends.
“Unlike anybody else on that tour [between 2009 and 2011], I did not have my own hotel room. I was not asked if I wanted my own hotel room”, she claimed. “I had no privacy, no chance to talk to any family, no chance to talk to any friends, no chance to have sex if I wanted to have sex. There was no chance to do anything.”
Gaga testified that she doesn’t offer overtime pay for any of her employees. She said, “She knew there was no overtime, and I never paid her overtime the first time I hired her, so why would she be paid overtime the second time? This whole case is bullsh-t, and you know it.”
O’Neill stated that she worked 7,168 hours of unpaid overtime during the two times she’s work for Gaga and wants to be paid back $398,000 in damages. Gaga asserted that O’Neill knew beforehand that she would not receive overtime compensation and she should be grateful for the opportunity to travel all over the world with the “Born This Way” singer.
“Because she slept in Egyptian cotton sheets every night in five-star hotels , on private planes, eating caviar partying with Terry Richardson all night, wearing my clothes, asking YSL to send her free shoes without my permission, using my YSL discount without my permission.”
Gaga said she hired O’Neill as a favor for the $75,000 a year job and that she was majorly under qualified for the position. O’Neill began working with Gaga in 2009 and was employed by her for 13 months.
According to Gaga, O’Neill didn’t offer her much help as a typical personal assistant should. She claimed that due to O’Neill’s inefficiency, she had to organize her clothes and personal items and had no choice but to move her heavy luggage on her own. “She would only open a couple of bags, and it was very stressful for me because then again on my off days I couldn’t really have a day off because, you know, I weigh 115 pounds, and I was trying to move these huge, big luggages all by myself in the room, and I did it all the time – by the way, she was asleep until 12:00 most of the time, so I was very often waking up and moving my own luggage and doing s—t by myself, and it was – it was a problem that I had,” Gaga said.
