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Bizarre Feud Alert: Did Katy Perry Steal Lady Gaga's Mermaid Idea?

There's something fishy going on here. But we've got to hand it to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry: feuding over the rights to a mermaid costume is among the more out-there celebrity battles we've come across.
/ Source: E!online

There's something fishy going on here.

But we've got to hand it to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry: feuding over the rights to a mermaid costume is among the more out-there celebrity battles we've come across.

Then again, those two pop superstars don't exactly fly the flag for normalcy, so we really shouldn't be that surprised. And yet..."mermaid feud" aren't two words we ever thought we'd associate with the avant garde chart-toppers. But here we are.

So--what on Earth (or, you know, under the sea) is going on?

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Well, first of all, a bit of clarification: it's not so much Mother Monster and the "Last Friday Night" singer who are facing off (uh, yet), but rather their fiercely loyal and protective legions of fans who are waging online war on their behalf.

Here's the deal: earlier this spring, before Gaga's ultimately land-locked music video for "Edge of Glory" was released, her frequent collaborator and choreographer Laurieann Gibson teased fans by noting that the video would have them " feeling very fishy." A leaked treatment confirmed that Gaga would going full Ariel for the endeavor, introducing the Little Monsters to her latest alter ego, a mermaid named Yuyi.

Sure, the treatment was ultimately scrapped, but the creation wasn't, and just last month, her Ladyship performed the song on France's Le Grand Journal dressed as (you guessed it), mermaid Yuyi.

And then, in a particularly bad bit of timing (for Katy, anyway), just this week, Gaga appeared on a Taiwanese talk show and announced that Yuyi " is in incubation " and all but announced that the fishy creation "may just be born in the next video."

So far, so good.

Cut to this morning, when Perry--who, bear in mind, has already taken some heat from Little Monsters who thought her spacey "E.T." video bore a little too close a resemblance to Gaga's deep space-set "Born This Way"-- posted a Twitpic of herself seemingly on the set of her new music video dressed as (yep) a mermaid.

Technically, a planking mermaid, but a mermaid all the same.

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Now, this could easily be a coincidence--after all, Katy's probably got more important things to fill her day than keeping abreast of all of Gaga's creative developments, and it's unlikely she'd rip off an idea so blatantly--but that's certainly not the conclusion Gaga's fans have jumped to.

Nor her collaborators. Gibson herself took to Twitter just hours after Perry's nautical half-breed photo was posted and made it pretty clear that this particular imitation is anything but flattering--in fact, to her, it's outright thievery.

"Proud of my artist #1 in the world @Ladygaga her vision & passion," she wrote. "Even though they try to steal a tail theres only 1 Mermaid. Swim On!!!"

Well, every underwater story needs a kicky sidekick. Guess Sebastian was otherwise engaged. For their parts, Gaga and Perry have yet to comment on (or, for all we know, even notice) the situation.

Beef: it's not just for wearing anymore.

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