Lady Gaga reflects on her cocaine use

Plus: Madonna: Adam Yauch was one of a kind, Courtney Love admits at least one of her shortcomings, medical worries plague Chris Martin and more.

P Diddy makes his guests remove their shoes and wear slippers while inside his home. Charles Eshelman / Getty / AFP
Powered by automated translation

1. Lady Gaga reflects on her cocaine use

Lady Gaga admitted that her loneliness at age 20 led to a cocaine addiction, while living alone in New York. "I would go back to my apartment and it was just my piano and myself. It was like the drug was my friend," she told Rolling Stone. "It's such a terrible way to fill that void, because it just adds to that void. I woke up one day and was like, 'You're not an artist. If you were real, you'd be focused on your music'." * IANS

2. Courtney Love: I'm no web genius

Courtney Love has asked advisers to help her with social networking after a number of online disasters. "I'm not a social network genius, as evidenced by being the first person ever to have a Twitter lawsuit," she said. "I have a girl who helps me with it now. I can't do that by myself." Love admits she also looked into hiring a company to remove negative stories about her from the web. "My online persona is a disaster - that's not me." * IANS

3. Pete Doherty to auction Winehouse blood painting

A painting created by the late Amy Winehouse and her rocker friend Pete Doherty by using their own blood is set to fetch US$130,000 (Dh480,000) at an auction. The joint artwork, titled Ladylike, is set to be the showpiece lot at an auction of Doherty's belongings, reports the Daily Star. Profits will be donated to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity set up after her death. * IANS

4. Chris Martin suffers ear trouble

Coldplay's vocalist Chris Martin admitted he has been secretly suffering from the ear condition tinnitus for a decade. He blames the ailment, which leads to a constant ringing sound in the ears, on listening to loud music in his teens. Martin is now forced to wear special earphones on stage to stop the condition from worsening. He is also fronting a new campaign, called Action on Hearing Loss, alongside the singers Plan B and Gary Numan, who also suffer from the ailment. * IANS

5. P Diddy's house rule: wear slippers

Sean "P Diddy" Combs makes sure his party guests, particularly women, wear slippers so their high-heeled shoes do not ruin the floors of his Miami home. Yahoo! News reported that at a recent party he threw, the rapper told guests to change their footwear. "A lot of girls complained about taking off their high heels, which were part of the outfit, but that's his rule," the National Enquirer quoted a source as saying. * IANS

6. Madonna says Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boys rapper who died on Friday, was one of a kind and that the group were important to her musical history.

The singer says the seminal hip-hop group were "integral to the musical revolution that was happening at the time".

Yauch, also known as MCA, died on Friday morning in New York after a nearly three-year battle with cancer.

In a 25-year span that covered four number-one albums and more than 40 million records sold, the Beastie Boys played both prankster and pioneer, and were a groundbreaking act that helped bring hip-hop into the mainstream. But the demure, grey-haired Yauch wasn't boastful; he was thoughtful and a steady source of the trio's innovative spirit.

A devoted Buddhist, he led the group in performing concerts to benefit Tibet and, as a filmmaker, helped to promote their cause.

Yauch used the group's growing fame to attract awareness for Tibetan Buddhists and founded the Milarepa Fund to promote activism for Tibet in defence of what the non-profit organisation considered China's occupational government.

Madonna says she was sad to hear of Yauch's death and asked God to bless his family.

The Beastie Boys opened for Madonna on tour in the 1980s. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month. - * AP