Smack in the middle of her sold out world tour, Lady Gaga made a stop at last night’s VMAs to collect an award, and remind us all that she is still that bitch. It’s been a huge year for her after the release of her platinum-selling album Mayhem and a highly publicized guest spot in the latest season of Wednesday. 

 

Gaga has been spending pretty much all of 2025 giving us Halloween chic, and performing at the very best of her ability, making her win last night for Artist of the Year very deserved. 

 

 

It’s interesting to me that the VMA’s have transitioned to awarding artists on their own versus the videos themselves, but let me just be grateful our girl showed up when she had a 9:30pm call time over at Madison Square Garden the very same night. If rewarding artists for being artists is becoming a thing, there really isn’t any better recipient than Lady Gaga. In a musical landscape that is saturated with TikTok fads and algorithms, Lady Gaga brings to the forefront something that we are missing – art and the responsibility that comes with presenting that art to the masses. As she said during her speech, “Being an artist is a responsibility to making the audience smile, dance, cry, release at any turn. It is a method of building understanding and celebrating community”. Few artists aside from Taylor Swift have built community the way Gaga has with her Little Monsters. They show the f-ck out for their queen.

Gaga was sat right next to Ariana Grande, who seemed to take over for Taylor Swift as resident crowd reaction of the evening. The two ladies performed on the show back in 2020, and it was both of their first times back at the show since that very performance so it only felt right for Gaga to be hugging Ari when she won her award. Fans will know the lore behind that 2020 performance of “Rain On Me” and whatever Gaga whispered in Ari’s ear that night. She might not have remembered herself when asked back in March, but that didn’t stop fans online from giving their two cents and adding to the narrative. This is the type of sh-t MTV is all about. 

 

As Ariana cries from the audience, Gaga’s words during her acceptance speech hold very true for artists everywhere. Whether your art is performing on a stage or writing behind a computer screen, we are all chasing the same thing which is pleasing our audience. As someone who’s in the midst of a sold out six-night performance run at Madison Square Garden and has given us countless legendary VMA moments in past years, she definitely knows a thing or two about keeping an audience in the palm of her hand.

 

Keeping up with the drama as Gaga likes to do, she performed a medley of her hit “Abracadabra” and her new track “The Dead Dance” from Wednesday season 2, “direct” from her show at Madison Square Garden. While I’ll always appreciate a satellite performance, the truth is that the set was actually filmed during her show the night before. Since she has six shows at the iconic arena, including one literally an hour after she appeared on stage at the awards, it was believable enough. Plus, she made the effort to show up and do the trek before her own concert so for that I’ll go ahead and pretend like it wasn’t pre-taped. 

 

Not that it mattered, because the performance was clearly tailor-made for the VMAs anyway and showed Gaga in top performance shape giving all kinds of spooky vibes like it was 2011 all over again. She had me looking up ticket prices for her upcoming show in Toronto this week, which I was quickly humbled by. I’m still looking for someone to hook a boy up by the way!

 

 

Gaga made her VMA debut all the way back in 2009 with an historic performance of “Paparazzi”, and while many of her contemporaries from that time have either become fads of the 2010s or are holding on to relevancy for dear life, Gaga is 17 years into her career and she’s still pulling rock star sh-t like stopping by an award show before her own concert, where she proudly performed with her three VMAs that she won that night. Her dedication to being the campiest pop girl out there is why I love pop music. 

Simply put - there’s just nobody doing it like her. 

 

Lady Gaga accepted the “Artist of the Year” award at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards on September 7, 2025.
Photo credits: Andrew H. Walker/ John Angelillo/ UPI/ Shutterstock

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