Lady Gaga's former personal assistant and best friend Jennifer O’Neill is suing her for unpaid overtime -- $393,000. Lady Gaga doesn't intend to pay her one penny. In a 2011 videotaped deposition obtained by The New York Post, the singer explained why. For starters she says Jennifer was an awful assistant and “[...] she didn’t want to be a slave to one, because in my work and what I do, I’m the queen of the universe every day.” Oh, it gets better.
During her videotaped Aug. 6 deposition, Gaga said none of her employees get paid overtime, adding that O’Neill “knew exactly what she was getting into, and 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 bulls--t, and you know it,” she added. But under questioning, she conceded her decision not to pay overtime wasn’t based on labor laws, but is “actually based on a bubbly, good heart.” “I’m quite wonderful to everybody that works for me, and I am completely aghast to what a disgusting human being that you have become to sue me like this,” she said. “Because she slept in Egyptian cotton sheets every night, in five-star hotels, on private planes, eating caviar, partying with [photographer] Terry Richardson all night, wearing my clothes, asking YSL [Yves Saint Laurent] to send her free shoes without my permission, using my YSL discount without my permission.” Gaga said O’Neill’s job, which paid $75,000 a year, “was essentially a favor, and Jennifer was majorly unqualified for it.” “I expect there to be a certain level of, like, you know, knowledge and academia about, like, your job,” she said. [...] Gaga also portrayed O’Neill as an ingrate who took for granted the parties, “five-star hotels” and other luxuries — including “caviar, champagne and yachts” — that she got to enjoy as part of Gaga’ s entourage. “It is, like, such an amazing luxury that I get to travel the world and have planes, she doesn’t even see what a luxury it is, but she thinks it’s owed to her for no reason,” the singer said. At one point, Gaga bragged about how the night before, her employees enjoyed a “beautiful $3,000 meal that I paid for” at Spiaggia in Chicago, billed as the only four-star Italian eatery in the Windy City. Gaga said she picked up the tab “just because,” noting, “They were on their day off, and they all just wanted to be with me.” She also insisted that all her employees work only an eight-hour day — while also noting, “This job is a 9-to-5 job that is spaced out throughout the day.” “You don’t get a schedule that is like you punch in and you can play f--king Tetris at your desk for four hours and then you punch out at the end of the day. This is — when I need you, you’re available.” Gaga said she appreciates that “an eight-hour workday could still be a very difficult workday, you know, if you’re digging ditches or, you know, you’re, you know, putting sealing on a roof, you know.” “I’m not in any way discounting how hard an eight-hour work day can be, or discounting the role of an assistant.” But she also noted, “I do six shows a week, and I make a lot of money. I work, I work 24 hours a day. I’m not standing next to Steve holding tea, waiting for him to take a sip, that is not what I do,” Gaga said. “Not that people who do that don’t deserve their hourly pay, but I’m just pointing out that I deserve everything I’ve worked for. I deserve every dollar of it. And she deserves every dollar of her $75,000 that we agreed to. But she does not deserve a penny more.” Rather than paying off O’Neill, Gaga said, “I’m going to give all the money that she wants to my employees that work hard for me now that deserve it. “I’m not going to give it to her so she can go to Intermix and buy herself a new tube top,” the snippy superstar groused.
source: NY Post
Ladies and gentle-mens, that's how you reeaaaad. During the 6-hour deposition, Gaga says the friendship came to an end in the fall of 2011 while on a private jet back to the States from Paris. The plane had two beds. Since photographer Terry Richardson was on the plane, it was kinda inferred that he would sleep on the second bed, but Jennifer insisted she should sleep on the bed and flew into a rage when Gaga told her no. “I said, ‘Jennifer, this is really inappropriate in front of Terry Richardson,’ and she was like, ‘Don’t I get some sort of seniority because I’ve been here longer and I’m your friend? ’And I remember those words as clear as day, because when your best friend looks you in the eye and says ‘Why can’t I have that seat on your private plane, I’m your friend,’ the first thing I thought was ‘You’re not my f--king friend.’ You are not my f--king friend.”
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