Lady Gaga Lets ELLE Ask Her Anything

Alongside appearing on the covers of its US February 2025 and UK March 2025 magazines, Lady Gaga sat down with ELLE for an "Ask Me Anything" video. 

In the video, she addressed which song she wishes she released as a single, revealed which songs she'll never stop performing and teased her upcoming seventh studio album "Mayhem," to be released March 7, 2025. 

Watch the interview and read some of its highlights below:

What track she wishes she released as a single:

Gaga said she would've picked "Bloody Mary," but then changed her mind: "I don't think that song would've been big when I put out 'Born This Way.'" 

She called the song "ahead of its time," and joked that she didn't know if Jenna Ortega, her co-star in the upcoming second season of "Wednesday," was alive when she released it. 

She feels like fans would have really liked it if "Government Hooker" had been a single: "But, you know, they can't always get what they want." 

Her favorite lyric she's written:

Gaga revealed a snippet of new lyrics from an unnamed "Mayhem" song:

"Saw your face in mine

In a picture by our bedside

It was cold in the summertime

We were happy just to be alive"

She said she specifically loves the "cold in the summertime" line.

How she would describe "Mayhem" in three words:

Dark, poetry, hard: "I definitely didn't adhere to any one genre, but the beats are all really hard, so that was sort of the through line, is sonically, the album is pretty hard-hitting." 

What excites her most in fashion right now:

Gaga said she loves watching young designers and name-dropped Ilona Perla Marie-Claire Slama, who creates babydoll dresses like the one she wore in "Elton John: Still Standing" and on ELLE's UK March 2025 cover: "I've been wearing those a lot. Makes me feel like a porcelain doll." 

The biggest risk she's taken musically:

Despite a lot of people not wanting her to do it, Gaga said she thinks a lot of people thought she was crazy for making jazz: "I love all different kinds of music, and I feel like part of the joy of being a musician is that you are a student, and if you are not a student, for me, that's kind of a boring expedition. It's kind of like being an explorer, but you don't really want to find anything."

The songs she'll never stop performing:

Gaga had three picks – "Born This Way," "Bad Romance" and her vocal warm-ups: "I'll always do those in the shower, for sure." 

The Easter egg she didn't think fans would catch:

Regarding Easter eggs, Gaga said, "I feel like I make them really easy. I should get better at making them harder." 

While she didn't think any would fly under the radar, she mentioned the rollout for "Disease," which was first teased with a Spotify playlist that spelled the song's name, which in turn led to a rabbit hole down different websites: "The whole time that that was happening I just was like, 'Do they know now? Do they know now?'" 

She mentioned that she loves seeing fans dissect what things mean. She said sometimes, when she's creating, she puts stories into her work and doesn't even notice she's doing it. That's where the fans come in: "Sometimes they're juts so dead-on, and other times they'll find meaning in it that I didn't even know was there." 

What advice "Mayhem" would give to "The Fame": 

Gaga answered with, "not to be so hard on herself all the time."

She recounted feeling like she had already made it when she released "The Fame," when she would make her own costumes from clothing at vintage shops and perform in New York City: "That was some of the most beautiful times in my life, and then everything that happened after was pretty wild. And, yeah, I can't believe I'm still doing it." 

Then, Gaga sat down with ELLE UK to answer some more questions. 

How she'd describe the recording process for "Mayhem":

Gaga said the recording process was about the songs, first and foremost: "It was extremely organic, and it was all about the songs. I wrote so many songs and spent a lot of time crafting and honing each one of them in. Over time, the production started to take form, and I started to produce them in more intricate ways."

What exploring "the art of intensity" for "Mayhem" entailed:

As an artist who works in extremes and pushes herself to the limit one way or another, Gaga said she wanted to explore why she works that way:  "What I found is that the harder the music was, the more fragile the lyrics became. So there’s something that I experience as a human being that is like vulnerability and toughness at the same time."

What kind of healing power music has:

Other than her fiancé and family, Gaga said nothing makes her happier than music: "It always makes me feel just really grounded and centered and oddly in control of the outcome. It’s a really chaotic process making music, but you have to rely on yourself, and I can’t rely on everyone around me when I make a song. I really have to listen to what my heart’s saying."

Given her nearly 20 years in the music industry, Gaga called it a blessing that she still loves writing and producing more than anything else: "The art of fame and my love of performing, all of those things are things that i got to explore along the way, but there’s just nothing like being in a studio by yourself and pressing record. It’s pretty cool."

What lessons fans can take from "Mayhem" that haven't been explored in previous albums:

"Mayhem" is completely about "the art of chaos": "It means if something gets too fast you have to figure out how to reign it in. if something is becoming mundane you have to add velocity."

While she said pop music doesn't have to be super deep to be fun and effective, Gaga confirmed "Mayhem" has a lot of depth to it: "When the lyrics are more honest, then you have to be that honest with the sounds, and there were some moments making this record where I really surprised myself."

She continued, "'Disease,' in a way, is so relentless the whole time that you have to have vulnerability in the lyrics. Otherwise, it will just be, to me, kind of boneheaded and dumb and boring, so you have to create wind when it’s raining rocks."

To read the full printed ELLE interviews, click here (US) and here (UK).