Remember when Lady Gaga ‘bled’ onstage during her shocking performance at the 2009 VMAs?

By Caitlin Chatterton, CNN

(CNN) — Singing about the perils of fame, being dragged out from beneath a fallen chandelier then bleeding to death in front of a roomful of celebrities: Lady Gaga was not shy about making her debut at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The year was 2009 — many will remember it as the year rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) stage-crashed 19-year-old Taylor Swift and suggested her award for Best Female Video should have gone to Beyoncé instead. But never one to be overshadowed, Lady Gaga, then 23, made some pop culture history of her own that night.

Her rendition of “Paparazzi” — lamenting both unrequited love and the sinister effects of hounding tabloids — has gone down in the mists of Gaga legend; not least because a lack of high-quality footage means fans must resort to watching grainy screen-recorded versions circulated on social media.

Over the limited number of pixels, Gaga can be seen at the start of the performance in an all-white ensemble: a bejeweled, asymmetric lace bodysuit and matching cape, thigh-high boots, a feathered Keko Hainswheeler headpiece and strings of glinting pearls. As she staggered back from her piano at the song’s crescendo, however, an audible gasp swept the room as thick blood suddenly appeared to be pouring from her abdomen.

“I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me,” Gaga wailed desperately, her once-pristine outfit now daubed in scarlet. She ended the number suspended above the stage, ‘dead,’ as more blood dripped from her eyes.

“(It) gives me chills every time I watch it,” Olivia Rodrigo told MTV in 2021. “I think Lady Gaga is the best performer of our generation.” The “Drivers License” singer appeared to take notes. At this year’s Grammy Awards, she began to ‘bleed’ from clenched fists while performing her hit “vampire,” spreading fake blood across her arms and neck as the song progressed.

Rodrigo wasn’t the only young artist inspired by Gaga’s gore: TikTok sensation-turned pop star Addison Rae recreated the blood-soaked look for Halloween in 2022, while fellow singers Madison Beer and Reneé Rapp have cited “Paparazzi” as one of the VMAs’ most iconic moments. “That was the most impactful performance of my youth,” Beer told MTV in 2021. “It shifted culture forever,” Rapp agreed in a separate interview two years later. “Nothing was ever the same.”

But not everyone was sold.

In a piece published immediately after the VMAs, The Daily Mail accused Gaga of having “garnered column inches mainly for her fashion choices rather than her raunchy pop music,” describing Gaga herself as “outrageous,” “eccentric” and her outfits as “bizarre.”

“She accepted her award for Best New Artist in a face-obscuring red get-up that would have made even Isabella Blow arch her eyebrows,” wrote a similarly skeptical Jon Caramanica, critic at the New York Times.

Page Six was also not happy with Gaga “cramming crazy down our faces,” her “Catholicism art work” or her “lazy” singing which, combined, had the reviewer “reaching for the (fast forward) button.”

A comment on fame

But Gaga’s blood-soaked bodysuit was more than a gimmick — it was a statement of autonomy, and a critique of the very institution she was performing for.

“When they wanted me to be sexy, or they wanted me to be pop, I always… put some absurd spin on it that made me feel like I was still in control,” she told studio musician Nick Movshon in “Gaga: Five Foot Two,” a 2017 documentary about the artist she also co-produced. “If I’m gonna be sexy on the VMAs and sing about the paparazzi, I’m gonna do it while I’m bleeding to death and reminding you of what fame did to Marilyn Monroe… and what it did to Anna Nicole Smith, and what it did to — yeah, you know who.” (The film’s director, Chris Moukarbel, later confirmed the ‘who’ was Amy Winehouse.)

“Paparazzi” was Gaga’s rebuttal of the press and fans’ insidious demand to own — and inevitably dispose of — female stars. Chappell Roan — who has long been compared to Gaga for her own theatrical music and fashion — shot to meteoric stardom this summer after her songs “HOT TO GO!” and “Good Luck, Babe!” went viral. Since then, however, she too has called out the invasive nature of celebrity after fans began asking for photos with her in the street and finding out where her family members worked.

“People have started to be freaks,” she said on TikTok star Drew Afaulo’s podcast “The Comment Section.” “I’ve pumped the brakes on, honestly, anything to make me more known.” She also took to her Instagram and TikTok accounts to reiterate her point, stating: “I’m allowed to say ‘no’ to creepy behavior.” Whether Roan — who is making her VMA debut this year after being nominated for Best New Artist and PUSH Performance of the Year — will choose to make her own sartorial statement remains to be seen.

As well as taking home the Best New Artist trophy in 2009, Gaga went on to win another two, for Best Special Effects and Best Art Direction. In the 15 years since, she’s provoked countless more gasp-worthy moments, including the famous meat dress she wore the very next year. But that night at the VMAs, Gaga marked herself as a pop force to be reckoned with, and ironically gave the press all they had ever wanted: a moment to talk about for years to come.

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