Lady Gaga hits out at ageism in the music industry: “I’m just getting warmed up”
Lady Gaga has hit out against ageist stereotypes and standards in the music industry during a speech at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, telling the audience she is “just getting warmed up.”
Gaga was accepting her ‘Innovator Award’ at the show in Los Angeles on March 17th, where she was prompted to look back over the heights of her career.
The ‘Abracadabra’ singer said: “I don’t totally know how to think about this because winning an award honouring my entire career at 38 years old is a hard thing to get my head around. On the one hand, I feel like I’ve been doing this forever.”
“(But) on the other hand,” she continued, “I know I’m just getting started. So even though the world might consider a woman in her late 30s to be old for a pop star – which is insane – I promise that I’m just getting warmed up.”
It comes off the back of the release of the pop star’s latest album Mayhem on March 7th, which hails Gaga as a longstanding critical success as it hit the top spot like all of her five previous solo efforts, some 17 years after her debut record, The Fame Monster, first captured the airwaves.
She enthused in her speech: “Innovation isn’t about breaking rules; it’s about writing your own and convincing the world they were theirs all along,” before adding that: “If I have learned anything in the three decades I’ve been at this, it’s that the most powerful innovation is your authenticity.”
Elsewhere, Gaga recently also hit back at critics of her notorious turn in 2024’s Joker: Folie à Deux, which was honoured at The Razzies as one of the worst films of the year. She claimed when hosting SNL that the “joke’s on them. I love winning things!”
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.