Lady Gaga’s legacy is her ‘Paparazzi’ VMAs performance

It’s rare that an awards ceremony features more than one defining moment.

Think back to the 2022 Oscars: You’ll be hard pushed to find more than a few viewers who remember anything other than Will Smith whacking Chris Rock across the face. CODA won Best Picture that year, for anyone – everyone – wondering. 

At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) though, there were two infamous scenes which would come to define the 15 years of pop culture that have followed since. Kanye West’s notorious interruption of Taylor Swift during her Best Female Video acceptance speech, and Lady Gaga’s blood-soaked performance of “Paparazzi”.

While the Swift and Kanye debacle led to one of the most laborious feuds in music history, Gaga’s moment became the blueprint for award show performances for years to come, and signalled the birth of a global pop deity.

Put yourself back there, September 2009: Lady Gaga, decked out as a sort of diva adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera’s Christine Daaé, lying masked and bereft against a fallen chandelier.

She begins with a theatrical rendition of the chorus to her number one hit “Poker Face” over melodramatic strings, and then launches into this startling plea: “Amidst all of these flashing lights, I pray the fame won’t take my life.” It’s a bold claim for someone whose career in the limelight had begun less than 12 months prior, but she knew what she was about to do, and who she was about to become.

There’s a reason why, after several years of being untraceable online, MTV re-uploaded the performance to its YouTube channel last week ahead of this year’s awards ceremony tonight (11 September). The VMAs have become decidedly less cool in recent years; this year’s ceremony will open with a performance by Eminem, who’s recent album is littered with dull trans jokes, and close with a medley from Katy Perry, who’s current campaign for album 143 feels like a real-time enactment of that The Simpson meme, “Stop! He’s already dead!”

MTV must know the VMAs will never make history like it again, and the fans know it too. In just four days, the re-uploaded performance has almost 350,000 views. “Please leave it up for future generations to witness,” begs the top comment.

There is so much to be mesmerised by, from the frantic piano playing while Gaga’s head lollops back and forth, to the histrionic, distraught expression on her face throughout.

There’s audible shock and horror when she walks away from the piano, blood pouring from her abdomen. Then, her “corpse” is risen up with the chandelier while cameras flash. It’s both a stark reminder of the deaths of Princess Diana and Selena, and an eerily foreshadowing of how the world would continue to treat Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. She drops the mic and her eyes go glassy, and we’re aware in real-time that the bar has just been bumped up. 

At the time, 23-year-old Gaga was very much still a breakout star on the rise. “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” were already songs of the year, but this was still the era of Gaga having to bat away inane comments about whether or not she had a penis. Few people had seen her perform live in such a capacity; as with all young female performers, she’d been accused of lip-syncing, unoriginality, lacking talent. This was before the balls-to-the-wall “Bad Romance” video or the Oscar-nominated A Star Is Born performance, but in one fell swoop, she proved she could and would do it all. There and then, she went from pop star of the moment, to cultural titan for the ages.

Back in 2024 now, and over the next few months, Gaga’s prowess will be up for scrutiny once again. Joker: Folie à Deux in which she plays Harley Quinn, will land in cinemas in early October, as will the first single from her new album, her first in almost five years. It’s a long time to have been away in pop terms – the landscape has changed, and there will be questions of where she fits now in a world of Charli XCXs, Chappell Roans, and Sabrina Carpenters – even though she likely inspired them all.

She’s been criticised, even by her own fans, for seemingly dropping her idiosyncrasies in favour of chasing awards hype and pandering to a more mainstream, straight-laced audience.

In a recent Vogue interview, she all but admitted that she’s a very different pop star today from the one who leaked fake blood onto the stage at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. But Gaga’s “Paparazzi” VMAs performance is proof enough that her creative genius is unmatched, if and when she wants to tap into it.

Earlier this month, MTV asked the question: what is the most iconic VMAs performance of all time? Alongside “Paparazzi” is Beyoncé’s baby bump reveal, Madonna and Britney’s kiss, and a few other performances that have to be rewatched to be recalled. But as much of the internet seems to be saying, Gaga’s is unmatched. “Talk about a cultural reset,” goes one such comment. “A pop star was born that night.”

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