Lady Gaga hits back at “insane” ageism in pop: “I promise I’m just getting warmed up”

nme.com:

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.