NEW YORK – They may have had a bad romance, but now there’s an amicable professional split between Lady Gaga and a music producer who said he helped launch her career.

Court papers filed this week show that the Grammy Award-winning “Bad Romance” singer and songwriter-producer Rob Fusari agreed to dismiss the lawsuits each filed against the other in March.

He’d sought $30.5 million, but it’s unclear whether they made any monetary deal. Lawyers for both sides and a Gaga spokesman didn’t immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages Friday.

Fusari had said the pop-meets-performance-art sensation shoehorned him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote such Gaga hits as “Paparazzi” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich,” came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.

Fusari — who has a producing credit on Lady Gaga’s 2008 debut album, “The Fame” — met the singer two years before when she was still Stefani Germanotta, according to his lawsuit. He has a studio in Parsippany, N.J.

He said they forged both a romantic and a business relationship, both soured, and he was denied money their contract entitled him to, including a 20 percent share of her song royalties. He said he’d received about $611,000 but was due far more.

Lady Gaga’s lawyers had said that Fusari was just an agent for her and got the then-inexperienced singer to sign an unfair agreement in 2006. Her lawsuit asked a court to void the “unlawful arrangement” or at least declare that Fusari wasn’t owed what he claimed.

Aretha picks actors for biopic

DETROIT – Aretha Franklin wants Halle Berry to sign on to portray a younger version of the Queen of Soul in an upcoming biopic.

The 68-year-old singing legend sent out a press release this week revealing her choices for Hollywood stars to play top roles in a planned film about her life and career.

Franklin says she wants Oscar winner Denzel Washington to play her father, the late C.L. Franklin, a prominent Baptist minister and civil rights leader in Detroit and Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard to portray Motown star Smokey Robinson.

The movie, for which Franklin says she’ll be reviewing the script next week, will be based on her autobiography, “Aretha: From These Roots.”

Witness recants at Smith trial

LOS ANGELES – A key witness at the Anna Nicole Smith drug conspiracy trial has retracted her statement that she saw Smith’s boyfriend Howard K. Stern inject the former Playboy model.

Quethlie Alexie, who was a nanny for Smith in the Bahamas, acknowledged Friday under tough cross-examination in Los Angeles that she signed an affidavit saying she saw Stern, a defendant in the case, inject Smith with a white substance. However, she retracted that claim and a number of other statements.

Stern, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including providing Smith with excessive opiates and sedatives. They are not charged with her drug overdose death in 2007.

Schwarzenegger promotes self-esteem

LOS ANGELES – Katherine Schwarzenegger is following in the footsteps of her high-achieving parents, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.

The 20-year-old college student has written a book coming out next week that’s aimed at helping girls gain confidence in their bodies and themselves. It’s titled “Rock What You’ve Got: Secrets to Loving Your Inner and Outer Beauty” (Hyperion).

She says part of the motivation for the book was overhearing her preteen cousins talk about their desire to be thin and “sexy.”

 

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