Lady Gaga Opens Up About the Hate Surrounding JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX and How She Turned It into Art
When Joker: Folie à Deux hit theaters in 2024, the reaction was anything but kind. The follow-up to Todd Phillips’ 2019 hit Joker, which earned Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar and became a cultural lightning rod, was torn apart by critics and audiences alike.
Unlike the first film, which thrived on controversy, the sequel stumbled hard, despite Lady Gaga’s much-praised performance as Harley Quinn.
Now, a year later, Gaga is reflecting on that rough experience with a more clarity. In a new Rolling Stone interview, the pop superstar and actor opened up about the backlash and how she managed to channel all that negativity into something powerful.
“I wasn’t, like, unfazed,” Gaga admitted when asked about the wave of 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.”
Gaga gave everything she had to Joker: Folie à Deux, and the harsh reaction clearly stung. But, she didn’t let the criticism break her. Instead, she did what great artists do, she transformed it.
She explained that she found creative fuel in all that frustration, channeling it directly into her latest album, Mayhem, and its lead single, “Disease.”
“I put so much of that energy into that video,” she said. “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.’”
The result was a cathartic artistic rebirth for her. With Mayhem topping charts and her world tour selling out, Gaga has clearly bounced back. She even made a surprise appearance in Wednesday’s second season, showing that her screen presence is still magnetic.
Look, Gaga was fine in the movie. She gave a strong performance. But, the movie just didn’t work. It was a Todd Phillips brain fart.