Lady Gaga Debuts Fame Film, Gets Tattoo at Fragrance Launch

by Marc Schneider and Gregory DelliCarpini Jr., N.Y.| September 14, 2012 1:25 EDT

Covered in black goop, screams, guns and nudity, the short film promoting Lady Gaga's FAME fragrance debuted Thursday at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC for the launch of the world's first ever black eau de parfum.

The centerpiece of the 5:30-long Steven Klein-directed film is a gigantic, reclining naked statue of Gaga that grows more lifelike over time. It is being guarded by an army of muscular men wearing little more than loin cloths and face masks. Their leader: a sashaying Gaga wearing black lipstick and a store manager-type headset.

At the halfway mark in the film, two other Gagas hook up with individuals who appear to be guards -- she scrapes a blackberry jam-like substance off one of their faces.

Later, another Gaga picks up a gun out of a lips-shaped vat of oily blackness, points it at another Gaga, whose mouth is actually a double barreled shotgun, and shoots. The first Gaga appears to lose and is submerged in the pool, which at that point looks like shards of obsidian.

As the film draws to a close, the reclining Gaga goddess statue is being scaled by the guys wearing leathery loin cloths. Following a scream, you get the full art treatment for the Fame fragrance.

At the launch event, Gaga rocked her new Louis Vuitton hair color and Terry Richardson style shaved head as she rolled up to the Guggenheim in her convertible Rolls Royce. The singer looked like a bohemian princess as she stepped onto the red carpet in a black velvet gown from Prabul Gurung's fall collection and Kwiat glittering gold headdress.

Gurung tweeted "Wow amazing!! @ladygaga in our Fall12 gown at her perfume launch party. Surreal n xctng xo PG" He went on to say that he was the "happiest man in the world" ! seeing Gaga in his designs.

The singer emerged at the masquerade ball-themed launch party inside a grandiose replica of her perfume bottle. Part performance art piece part salacious spectacle, the bottle acted as a stage of sorts where guests could witness a laid-out Gaga getting tattooed.

The public act ended with Gaga revealing a new ornate winged cherub tattoo on the back of her head.