Dressed down in pyjama bottoms and an oversized cardigan, she could have been all-too easily mistaken for any sleep-deprived new mother enjoying a leisurely stroll in the Californian sunshine.Cradling her baby tightly against her chest, her low-key fiancé walking beside her in shorts and a baseball cap, the woman barely warranted a second glance from locals in the affluent hamlet of Ross, just north of San Francisco.But anyone scrutinising the family a little more closely would have realised that this was no ordinary suburban mum. Far from it. This was, albeit improbably, Lady Gaga.The pop singer – who has made a career out of reinvention and has sold millions of records, won an Oscar, and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planet – may have pulled off her most unlikely transformation yet: ‘trad’ wife and mother.Gone, at least for the moment, are the elaborate costumes, the towering heels and headline-grabbing outfits that have become synonymous with the superstar.In their place are discreetly comfortable clothes, a baby in her arms, and a quiet life in a well-heeled California community, where she has been spotted sipping red wine at The Corner Bar, buying pots and pans at Crate and Barrel – similar to the upmarket furniture and homeware store Heal’s – and driving herself to Pilates at the wheel of her £31,000 Tesla with a baby seat in the back.It marks the start of an unstarry new chapter for the 40-year-old whose every public appearance has been a spectacle.Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months old.‘Rose’ is reportedly a tribute to one of Gaga’s favourite songs, Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie En Rose. Gaga already has a rose tattooed on her back alongside the title of the song. Lady Gaga, the pop singer who has made a career out of reinvention and transformed herself into one of the most recognisable icons on the planetThe baby’s unusual middle name is said to honour the late civil rights activist Carl Bean, whose 1977 anthem I Was Born This Way inspired Gaga’s iconic 2011 hit, Born This Way.For Gaga, whose career has been built on theatrical stagecraft and a larger-than-life persona, Rose Bean’s name offers a surprisingly intimate glimpse into her quiet new life.And as one local described it, Gaga’s latest incarnation is, apparently, as a ‘trad’ – or, traditional – wife. The woman, who has seen the star out and about in Ross, a tree-lined town of 2,500 residents, said: ‘This small town is very quiet. Most people here are from the tech world and Silicon Valley. You see her and Michael around but they are very low-key. Occasionally she’s with a woman who looks like a personal assistant but she’s not surrounded by bodyguards.‘I barely noticed her the first time I saw her in the coffee shop but I did see the massive diamond ring on her engagement finger.‘That’s when I realised who she was. No one makes a fuss over her here and that seems to be the way she likes it.’ Gaga – real name Stefani Germanotta – moved into her fiancé’s £7.5 million four-bedroom home in Ross at the start of the summer, leaving behind the £16 million beachfront mansion in Malibu she has called home for more than a decade.Another local said: ‘The house in Ross is modest when you consider how rich she is [Gaga is reportedly worth £220 million] but it’s cosy and surrounded by trees.‘You can’t see anything from the road. Michael bought the place a few years ago, long before they got together. He’s a really good guy, quiet and respectful.’In a rare interview with a technology magazine, Harvard-educated Polansky said that the couple – who are engaged and have been dating since 2019 – met through Gaga’s mother Cynthia, who runs the singer’s Born This Way charitable foundation. Polansky made his money in tech after befriending Sean Parker, one of the co-founders of Facebook.He now runs a company that uses ‘spare’ human skin left over from medical procedures to test new drugs, and sits on the board of Parker’s cancer charity.Polansky told Tech Crunch magazine: ‘[Cynthia] had said, you know, for months and months, “I want to set you up with my daughter”. I was like, I think you’re making fun of me.’But when he and Gaga met at the end of 2019 ‘it all made perfect sense’, he said. When the pandemic hit and everything shut down in the spring of 2020, he moved into Gaga’s Malibu mansion.A neighbour told The Mail on Sunday: ‘You would see them walking along the beach with her two French bulldogs, deep in conversation.‘Michael is a big teddy bear of a man and very sweet.‘It was probably the longest time I’d ever seen her at the house. She was there for months and months. By the time lockdown ended they were a solid couple and the next thing I heard was they’re engaged.’For her part, Gaga calls Michael ‘the love of my life’. ‘He’s my best friend in the whole world,’ she said. ‘He just blew me away from the minute I met him. He always, I think, really saw me and I think I always really saw him.’Motherhood and marriage have been on Gaga’s mind for a while.In interviews to promote her global Mayhem Ball tour, which ended in April, she spoke repeatedly about wanting to take time off and start a family, telling one US talkshow host: ‘I’m hoping motherhood will be my next starring role.’It has been widely reported that Gaga used a surrogate to become a mother, something her representatives declined to comment on last night. But one source said: ‘She was photographed a lot up to the end of April when the tour ended. She had three songs in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which came out in May, and she did a bit of promotional work for that and then she disappeared.‘No one ever saw her looking pregnant in public.’Birth records show Rose was born on June 9 at 11.19pm at Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA.Join the discussionHas Lady Gaga’s shift to quiet motherhood changed how you view celebrity lifestyles and priorities?What’s your view? Last week, it was confirmed that her child with tech titan Michael Polansky, 42, is a daughter named Rose Bean who, sources say, is already a few months oldThe source, who calls Gaga by the nickname her friends and family use, said: ‘Stefi completely dropped out this summer and went into nesting mode. She and Michael took the summer off and went to northern California and hunkered down.‘People were gossiping about her going silent but we all thought that maybe she and Michael had eloped. When the news broke about the baby it was a surprise but only because she managed to keep it a secret.’The source added: ‘No one is surprised she’s become a mum, it’s what she always wanted.’Gaga’s new role comes amid a life marked by extraordinary highs and lows.She has spoken openly about the trauma of being raped by a music producer 20 years her senior when she was just 19 and starting out.Speaking on the 2021 Apple TV series The Me You Can’t See, which was the brainchild of Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey, she says the rapist ‘dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parents’ house, because I was vomiting and sick’.The assault left her with such severe PTSD that she used drugs and alcohol to numb the emotional pain, saying she would smoke up to 20 marijuana joints in a day and was a habitual user of cocaine.A ‘psychotic break’ came during filming of A Star Is Born in 2018 (for which the song Shallow won her an Oscar).She was hospitalised and began taking the powerful anti-psychotic drug lithium.She said: ‘I had a total psychotic break and, for a couple of years, I was not the same girl.’Gaga, who took her stage name from the 1984 Queen song Radio Ga Ga, has always used music to heal her pain and connect with others who felt alienated.Her followers, who call themselves ‘Little Monsters’ and refer to her as ‘Mother Monster’, lapped it up as she constantly reinvented herself, often through performances or appearances designed to shock or provoke.When she sang Paparazzi at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards she wore a lace bodysuit that began leaking gallons of fake blood.Then there was her raw meat dress, which she explained was a protest against the US military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for gay soldiers. ‘The message was that if people don’t stand up for their rights they will soon have as many rights as the meat on their bones,’ she said.Another time she arrived at the Grammys inside a giant translucent egg and ‘hatched’ on stage before singing Born This Way.‘I like to liberate myself with my ability to change,’ she has admitted. ‘I’m a chameleon.’She sold 170 million records thanks to hits like Poker Face and Bad Romance, became a fashion icon, Hollywood star, LGBTQ+ activist – she admitted to being bisexual in a 2009 interview – and, most recently, make-up guru thanks to her best-selling Haus Labs cruelty-free cosmetics brand.There were two failed engagements along the way to actor Taylor Kinney and talent agent Christian Carino.While friends say Polansky does not want to be in the public eye, he has become involved in Gaga’s world, sharing writing credits on some of her recent songs including a ballad called Blade of Grass about their engagement.She said: ‘A long time ago we were in the backyard and he said, “If I ever propose to you what should I do?” I said, “You can just wrap a blade of grass around my finger and I’ll say yes.”‘Michael’s sense of gravity might be the thing that I was attracted to about him the most.‘None of my tricks were gonna work on him.‘So many people in my life were looking to me for a good time. He saw the “real” me, not that stage version. I feel like a healthy, whole person for the first time.’There may be another surprise lurking behind the couple’s apparently quiet life together.While Gaga is widely assumed to be the bigger earner, one friend claims Polansky has amassed a fortune of his own through his technology investments and shares.‘Everyone assumes that Gaga’s the richest one in that relationship, but I wouldn’t be so certain,’ the friend said.‘Michael is close friends with Sean Parker who founded Napster and Facebook and is worth billions. I’m not saying Michael is worth billions, but the word on the street in Silicon Valley is that he’s worth several hundred million.‘He’s not someone who is chasing Gaga’s money. He’s done very well for himself.’The couple were seen alighting from a private jet in Los Angeles last week, with Gaga protectively cradling baby Rose beneath her trench coat.As she settles back into her Malibu mansion, the woman who once made provocation her calling card appears to be rebelling in a rather different direction.But motherhood could well be her most satisfying role to date.