If you passed Lady Gaga on a Hamptons street on Saturday, there's a good chance you wouldn't have recognized her. The New York Daily News has photos of the now "fresh-faced" singer, who showed up at an avant-garde benefit at the Watermill Center wearing a nostril-piercing nose ring (it's not fake; she did indeed get pierced), super dark hair with blonde eyebrows, and not much in the way of makeup. See the Daily News' photos of her more natural look here. The fashion shift is apparently tied to new album ARTPOP, which is out Nov. 11 (first single, "Applause," drops Aug. 19) and is said to be inspired by her former self, aka Stefani Germanotta.
WWD notes that Gaga is also set to headline MTV's Video Music Awards, which it calls her "return to the public domain" after she was sidelined by a hip injury for six months—an injury she says was much worse than reported. "I had broken my hip. ... The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement." Amusingly, Bloomberg covered Saturday's event, which was attended by big-name financiers. A great line from the Bloomberg piece: "Robert Jain, head of Credit Suisse alternative investments, had observed a naked woman lying in a coffin covered in syrup. Lady Gaga tasted the syrup from a spoon." (More Lady Gaga stories.)