Lady Gaga Takes Target to Task for Little LGBT Monsters

Posted on Feb 22, 2011

Wikimedia Commons / aphrodite-in-nyc (CC-BY)

So, Lady Gaga struck a deal with Target to release a special version of her new album, “Born This Way,” which rankled some of her core devotees, as the retail giant had made a supersized slip-up in the political arena with contributions to a political action committee linked to an anti-gay candidate in Minnesota. However, it seems that Gaga was a step ahead of her would-be critics on this one, as she made a special arrangement with Target before signing on the dotted line.  —KA

Billboard:

That discussion was one of the most intense conversations I’ve ever had in a business meeting,” Gaga says. “Part of my deal with Target is that they have to start affiliating themselves with LGBT charity groups and begin to reform and make amends for the mistakes they’ve made in the past…our relationship is hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they’ve made supporting those groups.”

The reality may be a bit more complicated than that, however. Target VP of communications Dustee Jenkins spoke with Billboard at length —the full interview transcript is available at Billboard.biz—expressing Target’s excitement to be working with Lady Gaga and portraying the controversial donations as more of a lack of procedural oversight than anything else.

Jenkins says to that end, Target has created a new “policy committee” to review such matters. The committee doesn’t include Steinhafel and has yet to have its first quarterly meeting, but Jenkins directed Billboard to a page on Target’s corporate site that had “in the last week or two” posted new guidelines for Target’s political contributions.

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