When Lady Gaga was recovering from hip surgery in 2013, it made the singer contemplate her future. One of the possibilities she explored was whether she wants to have kids—soon!—with Taylor Kinney.
Now that she's recovered, does she still want to settle down and start a family? "I thought I did, because I was feeling kind of finished with all of the chaos of my life," Gaga says in Parade. "But then I started to spend a lot more time with [Tony Bennett], and everything just became simpler, more pure and more perfect. Now I'm going to take a lot more time before I have kids and settle down. I just want to sing."
If it weren't for Bennett, however, Gaga might have quit music altogether.
"Six months ago I didn't even want to sing anymore," the pop star reveals. "I tell Tony every day that he saved my life...I'm not going to say any names, but people get irrational when it comes to money—with how they treat you, with what they expect from you...But if you help an artist, it doesn't give you the right, once the artist is big, to take advantage of them." Gaga continues, "I was so sad. I couldn't sleep. I felt dead. And then I spent a lot of time with Tony. He wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice."
Gaga, 28, and Bennett, 88, teamed up for Cheek to Cheek, a collection of jazzy duets, available Sept. 23. "I just love what she did on this album," Bennett says. "She's up there with Ella Fitzgerald, who was the greatest singer in the world." Similarly, Gaga praises the music legend, saying, "Working with Tony has reaffirmed everything I knew but that you start to forget when your life changes and it gets really noisy."
What did the seemingly unlikely pair learn from each other? "Nobody has communicated with the public more than Lady Gaga. Ever. I trust the audience, and I'm very impressed," Bennett admits. "As far as they're concerned, she's part of their family. The only guy who ever did that was Bing Crosby, years ago." As for Gaga? "It's important to stay true to yourself," she says in the issue. "When I came into this with Tony, he didn't say, 'You've got to take off all the crazy outfits and just sing.' He said, 'Be yourself.'"