Lady Gaga had a magical 2025.
–She started the year off right when her Bruno Mars duet “Die With a Smile,” which had been on the chart since August 2024, reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in January. It made Gaga only the third artist to have scored multiple number ones on the Hot 100 in three distinct decades — only Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson had done it before. The song ended up being one of 2025’s biggest songs on streaming platforms globally.
–On Jan. 27, Gaga announced that her long-awaited new album, Mayhem, would arrive on March 7. The night of the Grammys on Feb. 2, she premiered the single and video for “Abracadabra,” the album’s second single. Though it never reached the top 10, it was hailed as an instant classic and ended up at #1 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the best songs of the year. Also that night, she and Bruno won the Grammy for best pop/duo performance.
–Mayhem, featuring songs co-written by Gaga’s fiancé, Michael Polansky, debuted at #1 upon its release. She promoted it by, among other things, hosting and performing on Saturday Night Live and singing at Netflix’s Tudum fan event. That appearance teased her upcoming cameo as Rosaline Rotwood in the new season of Netflix’s Wednesday, which arrived in September, along with a new song she recorded especially for the show, “The Dead Dance.”
–Fans got their first glimpse of Gaga’s Mayhem Ball tour when she headlined Coachella in April, followed by a promotional tour of Mexico, Brazil and Singapore. Her concert at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro drew an estimated 2.5 million people, making it the biggest concert in history by a female artist.
The Mayhem Ball proper launched in July to rave reviews; it’s set to wrap up in April 2026. The first North American leg was the highest-grossing run of her career.
–In November, Gaga scored seven Grammy nominations for both Mayhem and Harlequin, which she’d released in the fall of 2024 as a companion album to her movie Joker: Folie à Deux.
So what’s next for Gaga? Polansky told Rolling Stone that they plan to marry during her tour or “just after,” followed, Gaga hopes, by children. “Being a mom is the thing I want the most,” she said.
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