Those who missed the chance to see Lady Gaga‘s Mayhem Ball tour during its multi-night stint at New York’s Madison Square Garden were treated to part of the show during the 2025 MTV VMAs on Sunday night.
The cable network, which aired this year’s show on CBS for the first time, aired Gaga’s performance of “Abracadabra” and her new single from Wednesday, season two, part two, “The Dead Dance,” from her concert at Madison Square Garden.
Introduced by Rosé, who urged Gaga’s little monsters to put their “paws up,” Gaga, from the Manhattan arena stage, where she towered over a cage full of dancers atop a massive red ballgown, declared “the category is dance or die.” After “Abracadabra,” Gaga dropped down from the top of the dress into the cage and re-emerged from within the cage sporting her “Dead Dance” grey curls. After the cage opened like a gate, Gaga and her dancers moved down a long runway to the middle of the arena and then she ran back with her dancers as she sang, “Do the dead dance.”
Gaga’s performance came after she had to abruptly announce that she was postponing her Miami concert this past Wednesday. Gaga, who made the announcement shortly before the beginning of the show, said she was dealing with an “extremely strained” voice.
“During rehearsal last night and my vocal warmup tonight my voice was extremely strained and both my dr and vocal coach have advised me not to go on because of the risk it poses,” she wrote on her Instagram story. “I want to be hardcore and just push through this for you but I don’t want to risk long term or permanent damage on my vocal cords. There is a significant risk based on all our combined experience with a show like ours and as you know I sing live every night — and even though this was a hard and agonizing decision I would be more afraid of the long term implications on my voice. “I hope you can forgive me and accept my sincerest apologies for any disappointment, let down, inconvenience I am so so sorry. I tried so hard to avoid this. I take serious care of myself to be able to put on this highly demanding show. I love my fans so much, respect you and hope you can accept my sincere regretful apology.”
Earlier Sunday, Gaga briefly stopped by the VMAs, taking place from the UBS Arena in Long Island, New York, to accept the award for artist of the year.
There she spoke about what “being an artist” means to her, saying it’s “an attempt to connect the souls of people all across the world … a responsibility to make the audience smile, dance, cry, release at any turn and a method of building and celebrating community.” Turning to the audience, to whom she dedicated her award, she said, “I hope as you navigate through the mayhem of daily life … you can count on yourself and your skills to keep you whole.” She also thanked her Little Monsters and “partner in all things,” her fiancé Michael Polansky before telling the crowd she had to get back to the Garden.
Gaga, who went into the VMAs with a leading 12 nominations, including for video of the year, won four awards Sunday night.