Gaga Scout Wins Big Settlement

The award included a one-time fixed payment of $900,000, plus 50 percent of everything Fusari earned and future earnings from his business relationship with Gaga, The Record reported.

Wendy Starland claimed in her lawsuit that she’d been hired by Fusari in 2006 to discover an edgy future female star and thought she’d done just that when she discovered Gaga, who then went by her real name, Stefani Germanotta, during a performance at the Cutting Room in New York City, according to court documents obtained by the paper.

Starland brought Germanotta to meet Fusari, he signed a contract with the singer and her father, and he promised at the time to share earnings from the deal with Starland, the suit said. But Fusari failed to pay Starland as Gaga’s fame grew, leaving her frustrated. Gaga had corroborated Starland’s claims in a pretrial deposition in September, explaining her understanding was that “Wendy and him had initially agreed upon 50/50 perhaps before Wendy ever found me, and after I was signed to Rob and made music, Rob began to change his mind.”

Gaga added that as time went on, her relationship with Starland become strained over the topic of money.

“Wendy was frustrated because she kept trying to get him to sign something which he had verbally agreed to and dangled paperwork in front of her for quite some time,” she testified. And Gaga’s relationship with Fusari also eventually soured, leading the producer to file a $30.5 million suit against her in 2010 seeking shares of song royalties, merchandise and other income.

That suit was eventually settled and terms were never disclosed. More information regarding Starland’s award is forthcoming.