On October 10th 2013, Lady Gaga tweeted to the world that on October 27th 2013 "Venus" would be the 2nd single to be released from her then forthcoming album "ARTPOP".
On October 20th 2013, the day before "Do What U Want" was due to be released as a promo single, Lady Gaga took to twitter and seemingly had decided to have a bit of a rant at her critics, while hashtagging lyrics from the song.
The song was released on Monday October 21st 2013, and within hours of its release was riding high on iTunes charts around the world. Her fans were quick to claim that Gaga was "back to her slaying ways".
Gaga and her team also seemingly thought that "Do What U Want" was "slaying" the charts - but what they didn't seem to realise was that the song had been given a boost on the iTunes chart thanks to the pre-orders of "ARTPOP". Once the song had been released, the album pre-order figures for the track were added to the chart stats.
Inspite of this, on Tuesday October 22nd 2013, a mere 6 DAYS before the release of "Venus" as 2nd single, thirsty Gaga and her team announced that they were "overwhelmed by the worldwide response & excitement for Do What U Want", and announced that it would now be the 2nd single, instead of "Venus".
Perhaps so as not to appear to be thirsty and desperate, Gaga also tweeted to her monsters that "Venus" would still be released, and that it would still have its own video. Despite this announcement, a video for "Venus" never appeared - and, rather ironically, neither did a video for "Do What You Want"........but more about that later in the article.
Some of Lady Gaga's fans weren't particularly happy with the decision to make "Do What U Want" the 2nd single. They blamed the record label for the sudden release change - something Gaga was quick to point out wasn't the case, tweeting to a fan on October 23rd 2013 that "it is not the labels decision".
Despite the apparent "overwhelming response" to "Do What U Want", the next week the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #13. This would be its peak position, as the following week it tumbled down to #58, while "Venus" entered at #32. The following week, "Venus" fell from the top 100 entirely.
Thanks to a few high profile TV appearances and radio play, "Do What U Want" limped up and down the chart for a number of weeks - up to #48, up to #18, down to #20, up to #17, down to #18, up to #16, down to #23, up to #17, down to #19, down to #25, down to #36, down to #50, down to #68, down to #86, down to #95, before dropping off the top 100.
All the time this was going on though, fans were asking......where was the video???
On November 5th 2013, 6 days before the release of "ARTPOP", it was announced that Lady Gaga had split from her long-term manager Troy Carter. A source stated that they had split over "creative differences". Lady Gaga made no announcement or reaction to the split, and to look at her twitter feed at the time, you'd think she was the happiest person in the world.
On November 26th 2013, Interscope Records announced that the "Do What U Want" video would be released as a bundle through file sharing service BitTorrent and Vice, in December 2013. They stated that the bundle would consist of the music video, pictures, a separate clip in 4k resolution documenting the making of the release, and interviews with Gaga and director Richardson. They described the bundle as a means of "exploring the link
between open expression and open technology; providing an inside look at
the creative process, with original film, music, archival content and
behind-the-scenes footage direct from artists."
On December 4th 2013, Lady Gaga tweeted about the "Do What U Want" video, saying that it was unlike any video she'd ever done, adding that it was "very personal" and she was "just making it perfect".
On December 6th 2013, Terry Richardson tweeted a still of Lady Gaga and R. Kelly from "behind the scenes for their new music video, directed by me".
On December 10th 2013, Lady Gaga tweeted that the "Do What U Want" video was "almost ready".
On December 17th 2013, Lady Gaga appeared on "The Voice" and performed "Do What U Want" with Christina Aguilera. The next day she tweeted at Christina, and thanked (sucked up to) her for performing with her, saying that she had been "such a fan for so long".
For the remainder of December 2013, Lady Gaga remained silent about the "Do What U Want" video with R.Kelly, ignoring tweets from fans that were asking where it was. It was obvious that something was happening behind the scenes, and causing a delay for the release of the video, but Lady Gaga chose to keep her fans in the dark about it.
January the 1st 2014 arrived, and while fans were still waiting for news of what was happening with the video with R.Kelly, Lady Gaga announced via Twitter the release of a studio version of "Do What U Want feat. Christina Aguilera", along with a link to iTunes to buy it. This version of the song however, failed to make any impact on the charts.
Finally, on January 5th 2014, Lady Gaga broke her silence on the delay of the "Do What U Want" video. She posted a lengthy statement on her Little Monsters website, basically blaming everyone else for what had happened. She explained that the delay had happened because she "was given a week to plan and execute it" and that it was "devastating". She went on to say that her time and health had been "gravely mismanaged", and that she'd been left her on her own to "damage control any problems that ensued as a result" - presumably referring to her ex-manager Troy Carter.
She then went on a self-serving pity party, saying that after her hip-surgery she'd been "too sick, too tired, and too sad" to control damage on her own - although quite what this had to do with the "Do What U Want" video is unclear.
She then proclaimed, that "the next few months of ARTPOP" would truly be its beginning, stating that those who did not care about ARTPOP's success were now gone, and the dreams that she had been planning could now come to fruition.
She asked her fans to forgive her, because she had not forseen that after "years of hard work" those that she called friends and partners would ever care so little at a time when she needed them the most. She went on to ask her fans to give her a chance to show them the true meaning of seeing art all around them.
Tugging at her fans heart-strings, she asked them to open their hearts to her again, so that she could show them the joy of them coming together through their talents, (??WTF??), and that they are stronger as a unit than when they are alone.
She ended the ridiculous statement by asking her fans to "let me be for you the Goddess that I know I truly am. Forgive me monsters. Forgive me ARTPOP. You are my whole world".
Of course, the one thing she failed to address, was the one thing that her fans had been asking an answer for, which was when the video would actually be released!!???
Months passed, and the "Do What U Want" video fiasco was seemingly brushed under the carpet. Lady Gaga's fans seemed to accept that they were never going to get an answer on where it was or when it would be released.
Then, in June 2014, celebrity gossip website TMZ had obtained a copy of the video, and posted an
article about it. They claimed that it had been SCRAPPED - reportedly because Lady Gaga feared blow back since her co-star R.Kelly was once on trial for kiddie porn and her director Terry Richardson was in a swirl of
controversy over allegedly sexually assaulting or harassing his models.
The article also featured a short clip of the video.
It's unknown whether it was Lady Gaga herself that made the decision to scrap it, or if it was her record label Interscope.
To this day, the video for "Do What U Want" remains unreleased (along with the promised video for "Venus") and Lady Gaga has made no mention of it since her website statement on January 5th 2014.
To summarise - it's quite obvious to anyone with a brain, that the "Do What U Want" video was abandoned because of the potential damage that it may have caused to Lady Gaga's career, due to the controversy surrounding R.Kelly and Terry Richardson.
The "Do What U Want" fiasco completely derailed ARTPOP, and it never recovered.
For a woman who supposedly has such a special "connection" with her fans, it appears that she's unable to tell them the actual TRUTH behind why the video was never released.
Perhaps it's because the truth is rather too much to stomach.
