newsmakers

newsmakers

Lady Gaga, producer drop dueling lawsuits

NEW YORK

They may have had a bad romance, but now there’s a cordial professional split between Lady Gaga and a music producer who said she ditched him as both a collaborator and a boyfriend after he helped launch her career.

Court papers filed this week show the Grammy Award-winning “Bad Romance” singer and songwriter-producer Rob Fusari agreed to dismiss the lawsuits each filed against the other in March in a Manhattan court.

He had sought $30.5 million, but it’s unclear whether they made any monetary deal.

“Lady Gaga and Rob Fusari have agreed to end their dispute amicably and wish each other well. There will be no further comment by either of them,” the singer’s camp said in a statement.

Fusari had said the pop-meets-performance-art sensation shoehorned him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote such Gaga hits as “Paparazzi” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.

Fusari — who has a producing credit on Lady Gaga’s 2008 debut album, “The Fame” — met the singer two years before when she was still Stefani Germanotta, according to his lawsuit. He has a studio in Parsippany, N.J.

He said they forged both a romantic and a business relationship, both soured, and he was denied money their contract had entitled him to, including a 20 percent share of her song royalties. He said he’d gotten about $611,000 but was due far more.

“All business is personal,” his lawsuit said. “When those personal relationships evolve into romantic entanglements, any corresponding business relationship usually follows the same trajectory so that when one crashes, they all burn. That is what happened here.”

Lady Gaga’s lawyers had said Fusari was just an agent for her and got the then-inexperienced singer to sign an unfair agreement in 2006. Her lawsuit asked a court to void the “unlawful arrangement” or at least declare that Fusari wasn’t owed what he claimed.

Lady Gaga won two Grammys in January: best dance recording, for “Poker Face,” and best electronic/dance album, for “The Fame.” She leads the field of nominees with 13 nods for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards; the awards broadcast is tonight.

Sofia Coppola film wins top Venice prize

VENICE, Italy

Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” the tale of an actor who sees the emptiness of his existence through the eyes of his child, won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice film festival Saturday.

Director Quentin Tarantino headed the jury, which unanimously chose Coppola’s film as the best movie at the 11-day annual festival.

The buzz in the final days of the festival had pegged “Somewhere” as a sure winner, and the jury appeared to have had no doubts, either.

“This film enchanted us from its first screening,” Tarantino said. “It has the artistry we were looking for in a Golden Lion” winner, he told the closing ceremony.

“Somewhere” is the fourth feature by Coppola, who is also one of the few female directors to be nominated for an Academy Award — for “Lost in Translation.”

In “Somewhere,” Stephen Dorff plays a Hollywood star whose somewhat empty life is enriched by the arrival of his daughter, played by Elle Fanning. The film takes place nearly entirely in hotels, mostly the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

Associated Press