Lady Gaga owned the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards tonight with a performance everyone was waiting for.
Last night at Madison Square Garden, she recorded a special set for the VMAs, singing “Abracadabra” from her latest album, Mayhem, and then jumping right into her new Netflix Wednesday single, “The Dead Dance.” Draped in a giant, firetruck-red ballgown, Gaga shouted, “The category is dance or die,” while the lights flashed and the crowd went wild. She switched things up by transforming into a spooky, tattered Little Bo-Peep, spinning around with disco moves during “The Dead Dance.”
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aHs1LCir63Q
Earlier in the evening, she already snagged the Artist of the Year trophy, and with 12 nominations total, Gaga was basically everywhere you looked at the show. There’s still a chance she’ll take home Video of the Year for “Die With a Smile,” her duet with Bruno Mars.
Fans sometimes just want Gaga to surprise us, and she always does.
The VMAs have seen Gaga do wild things before—remember when she sang “Paparazzi” back in 2009? Or when she teamed up with Ariana Grande in 2020? Tonight, Mariah Carey and Sabrina Carpenter also performed, and Steven Tyler from Aerosmith was on the lineup too.
If you want to know more about Mayhem, it’s listed in “The Best Music of 2025 So Far.”
