Lady Gaga Finally Addresses Poor Critical Reception of ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’

Lady Gaga is finally speaking out about those scathing Joker: Folie à Deux reviews — and it’s clear the Artpop singer is taking her own advice to “Do What U Want.” 

Gaga appeared in the Joker sequel as Lee Quinzel, or Harley Quinn for those wildly or even partially attuned to the world of supervillains, joining star Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips into their gray-toned world of Gotham. The first film in the franchise from Phillips grossed more than $1 billion at the box office and earned 11 nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards, including wins for Best Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir and Best Actor for Phoenix. But Folie à Deux didn’t receive anywhere close to the same critical reception. Rolling Stone’s critic David Fear wrote “while the push-pull tension between the allure of complete social breakdown and the remorse over unleashing the collective id is what Folie à Deux really seems to want to dig into, the film never balances the two in a way that hits its targets.” 

Gaga graced the February cover of Elle and when asked about Folie à Deux’s reception, said fear of failure can be a damaging concept if it makes its way into your life. 

“People just sometimes don’t like some things,” she said. “It’s that simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be willing for people to sometimes not like it. And you keep going even if something didn’t connect in the way that you intended.” 

Gaga is clearly focused on keeping calm and continuing to pursue her art. On March 7, she’s set to release Mayhem, her first full-length LP since Chromatica in 2020, which will depart from some of her most recent electronic influences and return to a version of her earlier dark-pop sounds. 

“I was actually pretty hard on myself about not walking into the studio with any preconceived ideas that I was going to strangle onto,” she told Elle. “Mayhem is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to.”

From Rolling Stone US.