Keith Girard
Lady Gaga, who fancies herself a high-brow artist, has been hawking some decidedly low brow Miller Lite beer to her legion of Twitter followers. Has she joined other celebrities making paid commercial endorsements without telling fans?
Gaga, real name Stefani Germanotta, has built a career out of making avant garde statements in fashion and music.
But in Twitter photos posted over the weekend, she looked like one of the girls on MTV’s Jersey Shore. “me on the beach today,” the 26-year-old singer Tweeted. “i have a fear of swimwear,” she added, “but beer is ok.”
Lady Gaga: What About Artistic Integrity?
As if that wasn’t bad enough, she made sure she mentioned the brand by name. “I fear beachwear but a Starlight reminded me miller light goes all the way,” she wrote.
The bikini she was wearing was far more conservatively cut than we’re used to seeing the “Born This Way” star wear, but that could be because it was emblazoned with a huge Miller Lite logo.
Gaga has almost 30 million Twitter followers and was the first celebrity in the history of the social networking site to cross the 20 million follower mark. But a social media company, Status People, claimed in August that almost three out of four of her followers never or rarely tweet and may be fake accounts.
Whatever the case, celebrities can make substantial fees for Tweeting commercial products to their unsuspecting fans. The most notorious Twitter marketer is Kim Kardashian, who regularly hawks products to her fans without revealing they are paid commercial endorsements.
Last summer, Kim suddenly developed a fondness for Chili’s babyback ribs and began hyping the restaurant to her estimated 15 million followers.
A rack of ribs like the ones touted by Kardashian provide a whopping 2,400 calories, not counting sides. She’s also hyped her controversial diet pills, footwear and other products.
TheImproper first reported in December 2009 that Kardashian led a list of U.S. celebrities who were making paid product endorsements over Twitter without disclosing their ties to the product.
Dr. Drew Pinsky, Lauren Conrad, Paris Hilton and even Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, have promoted products for pay without disclosing their relationship to their Twitter followers.
Lady Gaga is never shy about showing off her figure, so how about a little disclosure on commercial Twitter endorsements? Click here to follow TheImproper on Twitter for the latest Lady Gaga updates.