In spite of everything, Madonna sincerely deflected blame in her Rolling Stone cover story.
"I don't think [Gaga] wants my crown. We live in a world where people like to pit women against each other. And this is why I love the idea of embracing other females who are doing what I'm doing . . . The only time I ever criticized Lady Gaga was when I felt like she blatantly ripped off one of my songs. It's got nothing to do with 'she's taking my crown' or 'she's in some space of mine.' She has her thing. I do think she's a very talented singer and songwriter. It was just that one issue. And everybody's obviously running with it and turned it into a huge feud, which I think is really boring, quite frankly. And you know what? I don't care anymore. Here's the thing: one day everyone's going to shut up about it. You'll see! I have a plan."
As a note, it's still ultimately kind of unclear what Madonna's plan was, but at this point, it seemed the feud had pretty much blown over. And, if you asked Madonna, there wasn't really a feud at all.
