Lady Gaga Reveals Her Reaction to All the ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Hate

Joker: Folie à Deux was one of the most divisive film releases of 2024—in a bad way. The reaction came in stark contrast to 2019’s Joker, which also polarized audiences but ultimately rode the wave of controversy to box-office glory, as well as Oscar glory, with Joaquin Phoenix winning Best Actor and the film itself scoring other top nominations, including Best Picture. Its unsatisfying musical sequel was met with critical and commercial disdain, though Lady Gaga’s performance was frequently mentioned as a rare bright spot.

A year later, with a hit album and world tour currently taking up her time, and having put some distance between her and Joker: Folie à Deux, Lady Gaga—who also had a fun cameo in Wednesday‘s second season—looked back at the fiasco in a new interview with Rolling Stone.

“I wasn’t, like, unfazed,” she said after being asked about all the Joker 2 hate. “It’s funny, I’m almost nervous to share my reaction. But the truth is, when it first started happening, I started laughing. Because it was just getting so unhinged … When it takes a while for something to kind of dissipate, that can be a little bit more painful. Only because I put a lot of myself into it.”

She told Rolling Stone that she was able to draw on the “ton of negativity around Joker” and repurpose it as creative inspiration, saying she was “feeling artistically rebellious at the time.” The first single, “Disease,” and the resulting music video from her latest release, Mayhem, offered a seemingly cathartic experience.

“I put so much of that energy into that video,” she explained. “I was in that place, you know, I was like, ‘I’ll show you who I am, and I’ll show you what this fight is like.’”

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