Lady Gaga hits back at “insane” ageism in pop: “I promise I’m just getting warmed up”
Lady Gaga has hit back at “ageism” in the music industry and reassured fans that she is “just getting warmed up”.
The pop icon made the comments while on stage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards, held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where she was announced as the winner of the Innovator Award.
Held last night (March 17), the event saw the hitmaker use her acceptance speech to share her love of the LGBTQ+ community and look back on the moments in her career that led her to this point. She also addressed the view that women are considered “too old” by the time they reach their mid-30s.
“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,” she said in her acceptance speech.
“On the one hand, I feel like I’ve been doing this forever. [But] on the other hand, 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,” she added.
“Innovation isn’t about breaking rules; it’s about writing your own and convincing the world they were theirs all along. Like showing up to the Grammys in an egg or creating an anthem that everyone told us was too controversial until it became undeniable. If I have learned anything in the three decades I’ve been at this, it’s that the most powerful innovation is your authenticity.”
Later in the speech, she went on to pay homage to her grandmothers, who she called “fiercely brilliant Italian-American women” who paved the way for her to have this career. “They didn’t invent technology or art; they invented possibility, shaping the future with nothing more than their minds,” she added.
While she took home the Innovator Award at the 2025 ceremony, Lady Gaga was also up for other awards, including Best Collaboration and Best Music Video – both for her song with Bruno Mars, ‘Die With A Smile’. She also got a nod in the Favourite OnScreen category for the film of her Chromatica Ball concert.
The award comes after the singer shared her highly anticipated album ‘Mayhem’ earlier this month, and has since gone on to announce international tour dates.
These include her first live shows in Singapore in over a decade, her first Mexico shows in 13 years and a monumental free show to over a million fans at Copacabana Beach in Rio. Visit here for tickets to all upcoming shows.
‘Mayhem’ was given a four-star review from NME, and described as a record that sees the pop icon “dial everything up to 11”.
“There’s a nonchalant confidence in the way Gaga sticks to her maximalist vision without pandering to contemporary pop trends. Most ‘Mayhem’ tracks run close to or over four minutes, making them mini-epics in the TikTok era,” it read.
“Ultimately, ‘Mayhem’ feels like a great Gaga album because it’s just so much fun. At times, it’s a bit like reconnecting with an old friend who makes sense even when they seem to be chatting nonsense,” it added. “Seventeen years after she broke through with ‘Just Dance’, Lady Gaga remains pop’s foremost agent of impeccably crafted chaos.”
The post Lady Gaga hits back at “insane” ageism in pop: “I promise I’m just getting warmed up” appeared first on NME.
Liberty Dunworth
NME
