Lady Gaga reveals the truth behind 'that' Oscars duet with Bradley Cooper

Lady Gaga has finally fessed up about her intimate performance of Shallow with Bradley Cooper at this year's Oscars ceremony.

The emotionally-charged duet between the two leads in A Star Is Born seemed to confirm what had already been widely rumoured — that the on-screen couple were also in an off-screen relationship.

But now the Bad Romance singer has revealed that she and Cooper deliberately planned the performance to make people believe they were in love.

"We worked hard on it, we worked for days," she told Oprah Winfrey in an article for Elle.

"We mapped the whole thing out — it was orchestrated as a performance."

Cooper told Oprah Winfrey he would never have been able to look Gaga in the eye during the performance had the rumours been true. Photo / Getty Images

Oprah said she had seen Cooper — who has a 2-year-old daughter with Russian model Irina Shayk — a few days before her interview with Gaga and he'd told her he would never have been able to look Gaga in the eye during the duet if the rumours had been true.

Gaga responded to hearing that with a wee barb, saying she thought the press was "very silly".

"I mean, we made a love story," she said.

"For me, as a performer and as an actress, of course we wanted people to believe that we were in love."