Lady Gaga says Amy Winehouse, who died on Saturday at age 27, was an inspiration to her as she was becoming famous.

While Gaga never actually met the young singer, she is heartbroken over her loss.

"I was with Lady Starlight... in Duane Reed in New York City, we were shopping for eyelashes and glue... so I just remembered I saw her on the cover of Rolling Stone and it was her first cover," said Gaga during an interview on Omaha, Nebraska's 94.1 FM, as quoted by the Celebrity Cafe. "I always felt kind of like an outsider -- in pop music, and just from high school and I remember [Lady Starlight] looked over at me and said, 'If she can do it, you can do it… I always felt like Amy had opened a door for girls like me who didn't fit that exact real pop mold.

"She was really special… she's gonna be greatly missed."

Friends and family gathered in London on Tuesday morning (July 26) to pay tribute to Amy Winehouse at a private funeral at the Edgwarebury Cemetery. Winehouse, who died at age 27 of yet-undetermined causes, was found unresponsive in her Camden apartment on Saturday by a bodyguard.

According to The Associated Press, friends such as Kelly Osbourne and Back to Black producer Mark Ronson were in attendance at the funeral, which was expected to be followed by cremation and a family gathering at a local synagogue. Osbourne, one of Winehouse's close friends, wore her hair in a tall beehive as an homage to her pal's signature look.

Winehouse's autopsy results were inconclusive, and police said results of toxicology test will take two to four weeks; an inquest has been opened into her death and was adjourned until October 26. Sky News reported that Winehouse's ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, was not in attendance at the funeral after officials refused a compassionate leave from jail, where he is serving a 32-month prison sentence after his conviction on burglary and firearms offenses.

British soul singer Amy Winehouse will be laid to rest at a private funeral on Tuesday, July 26, her rep confirms to Us Weekly exclusively. The "Valerie" singer was found dead in her London home Saturday at the age of 27.

Winehouse is survived by her parents, Mitch and Janis, her older brother, Alex, and her boyfriend, director Reg Traviss.

An autopsy performed Monday at St. Pancras Mortuary did not establish a formal cause of death, Metropolitan Police told Us in a statement. "We are awaiting the results of further toxicology tests," they added, which could take up to four weeks. An inquest was opened at St. Pancras Coroner's Court Monday afternoon; it was adjourned until October 26.

Mitch and Janis met with mourners outside their daughter's Camden Square home Monday morning.

"I can't tell you what this means to us. It really is making this a lot easier for us," Mitch told the well-wishers, who adorned the property with flowers, candles, vodka bottles, cigarettes, flags, wine glasses, drawings and handwritten cards. "We're devastated and I'm speechless, but thanks for coming."

Russell Brand is among those mourning the weekend death of Amy Winehouse, but from a somewhat unique position: Brand met Winehouse when he was newly sober at 27 and when the "jazz singer," as he put it, had yet to cross paths with global fame. And her story might well have been his.

"I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction," Brand, 36, wrote Sunday on his blog.

He saw her "oddly dainty presence" on stage only once, he said, and that experience changed his perception of her from "some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends" in London's Camden district to a genius with a voice filled with "power and pain."