Weird Al Yankovic unleashed an angry anti-Lady Gaga tirade on his blog Wednesday because he claims she rejected his “Born This Way” parody, but only after stringing him along and wasting his time.  But it may have been a misunderstanding.

Here’s the story: Weird Al wrote a Lady Gaga parody called “Perform This Way”.  He sent the concept and lyrics to her to see if she’d be cool with it.  Weird Al Yankovic Claims Lady Gaga Rejected His “Born This Way” Parody, But Lady Gaga’s People Say It Was a Misunderstanding.  Weird Al says Lady Gaga’s people told him to go ahead and record the track, because she’d need to “hear it” to approve it.  So Weird Al cut his vacation short…rushed back home and recorded and mixed the track.  He sent it to Lady Gaga, and then he got a response.  NO . . . they wouldn’t sign off on it.

Technically, Weird Al doesn’t NEED her approval to release the track, because his parodies fall under “fair use.”  But it’s always been his policy to only release songs in which he’s received an OK from the original artist.  But he did upload the song on YouTube.

Late Wednesday night, Weird Al updated his blog saying that Lady Gaga has signed off on the parody and loves his song.  He added that her people admitted that they hadn’t given the track to her in the first place.

Here is what he posted on his blog (http://alyankovic.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/gaga-update/)

Well, this was a strange day.

After putting my Lady Gaga parody on YouTube this morning – and announcing that it wouldn’t be on my next album because Gaga didn’t approve it – there was a huge outpouring of disappointment from the Internet.

Apparently the fact that she didn’t approve it was news to Lady Gaga herself!

Gaga’s manager has now admitted that he never forwarded my parody to Gaga – she had no idea at all. Even though we assumed that Gaga herself was the one making the decision (because, well, that’s what we were TOLD), he apparently made the decision completely on his own.

He’s sorry.

And Gaga loves the song.

I’m thrilled on many levels to hear this, because 1) I truly respect and admire Gaga as an artist and it pained me to think of her as having less than a great sense of humor, and 2) it means I GET TO PUT OUT MY ALBUM!

As promised, all my proceeds from the song (and the MUSIC VIDEO… I can’t wait…) will go to the Human Rights Campaign.

Thank you, Gaga. And thanks to everybody who had my back.

Whew!

Your pal,
Al