Last week, heat caught up with Lady Gaga’s best friend Lady Starlight – and, we didn’t think it was possible, but she’s even wackier than the popstar herself.

The performance artist, who is supporting Gaga on her Born This Way Ball tour, has even been praised by the singer as her “biggest influence” and helped shape Stefani Germanotta into the wacky megastar that rules the world of pop in outlandish outfit after outlandish outfit.

Check out this week’s issue of heat to read exactly what Lady Starlight and her best pal made of Madonna’s cruel jibes about the similarities between Gaga’s Born This Way and Madge’s Express Yourself.

But as a heatworld exclusive here is what the amazing lady had to say for herself when she sat down with us for a very candid chat – wearing yellow ‘devil’ eye contacts, naturally!

How did you first meet Gaga?

We met at a party where I was podium dancing. We had some mutual friends and she just walked up and slipped a dollar note in my pants. It was like ‘oh, cool, we’ve got the same ideas about life’ when we chatted at a few parties and we became really close quickly.

She said you helped create her iconic image – is this true?

That’s very flattering. I think I was the first person that said ‘yes’ to her. When I met her she had all these amazing ideas and everyone around her was saying ‘oh no, don’t do that’. She’d be like ‘oh I thought this would be cool but I don’t know if I should’ and I’d be like ‘YES! DO IT!’ And she started doing whatever the f*** she wanted to do which, of course, is incredible.

I think the most important thing I told her is that life, not just being on stage, is a performance. So you should always be ‘on’. In my show, I’m trying to freak the audience out. In life, I’m trying to freak ‘the audience’ out. So is Gaga. She does that through pop music, I do that through standing on a rotating platform. I don’t want cheers, I want stunned silence and people saying ‘is she really doing what I think she’s doing’. We love to freak people out. That’s our main aim when we dress up. We say ‘so who are we scaring today?’”

What is she like as a friend?

She’s the most amazing loyal person. We sit up and chat about all sorts. Back in the day we literally had no money. I used to drag her keyboard across New York when we went to gigs because we couldn’t afford taxi fares. We’d sit on the floor of our apartments gluing our cheap clothes together so they would match. I remember we made the iconic disco ball bra together we were so poor. Not that Gaga has any money at the moment because she puts everything she earns back into her shows. I remember she had five no 1s and no money and I thought ‘this is what being an artist is about’. You have to sacrifice everything. In that way she’s inspired me to give even more to my shows. She’s an international superstar and she’s broke. That’s dedication to her fans and her art.

Check out heatworld tomorrow for even more from our Lady Starlight chat.