Gaga Looks Back on Alter-Ego Jo Calderone, 'An Important Character' Who 'Explored what I Was Looking for in Men'

Lady Gaga opened up about the "Mayhem" driving her artistic life, part of which was tough alter-ago Jo Calderone – "an important character" who was "the way I explored what I was looking for in men," she said.

Gaga's highly anticipated seventh studio album "Mayhem" dropped Friday March 7. In discussing the new work, Gaga told Them, "I was taking a really long, hard look at the last 20 years. And I think it's interesting that I ended up calling my album 'Mayhem.'"

Looking back on the character of Jo – the persona Gaga showed up in for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2011 – the "Poker Face" singer mused to Them that the fictional "mechanic from Sicily" was "the way I explored what I was looking for in men, and also what I was maybe lacking in myself."

The Hollywood Reporter recalled that "Jo was also featured in the 'Yoü and I' music video. However, the first debut to the world was on the September 2010 cover of Japanese Men's Vogue."

"'Yoü and I' was actually, I think, the first video that I ever did where I played multiple mes," Gaga told Them, "and I brought that back on 'Mayhem.'"

This time around, the use of multiple versions of herself in videos like the one for her recent single "Disease" reflects something different, Gaga told Them.

"With this album, I just really wanted to put my priorities in the right place once and for all," the "Born This Way" singer said of "Mayhem," "and put the music in the front and set my fears aside and sort of define for myself who I really am."

The "Bad Romance" chanteuse reiterated to Them that the alter-ego, characterized by Them as a "drag king persona," is firmly in the past, saying that Jo "is no longer with me. But I wish Jo all the best."