A Complete Timeline of Lady Gaga & Madonna’s Rivalry & Reconciliation

“What a completely ridiculous thing to even question me about,” Lady Gaga said of the accusations during a 2011 NME interview. “I will look you in your eyes and tell you that I am not dumb enough or moronic enough to think that you are dumb enough or moronic enough not to see that I would have stolen a melody. If you put the songs next to each other, side by side, the only similarities are the chord progression. It’s the same one that’s been in disco music for the last 50 years. Just because I’m the first f—ing artist in 25 years to think of putting it on top 40 radio, it doesn’t mean I’m a plagiarist, it means that I’m f—ing smart. Sorry.”

The following year, during a 2012 interview with ABC News, Madonna made it clear that she was unamused by Gaga’s “Born This Way.” “It feels reductive,” she said. When asked if that was a good or bad thing, the singer simply replied with “look it up,” as she took a sip of her tea.

Madonna continued to comment on the perceived similarities between her “Express Yourself” and Gaga’s “Born This Way” when she performed a mash-up of the two singles on stage on her MDNA Tour.

In the middle of her song, Madonna and her dancers broke out into the “Born This Way” choreography while the pop star sings the song’s chorus before going back into “Express Yourself.”

According to HuffPost, while on the same tour, Madonna made a dig at Gaga during the St. Paul, Minn., stop before telling the audience that she invited Gaga to join her on stage for a duet. Gaga allegedly rejected the invitation.

“I have the best fans in the whole world. So take that, Lady Gaga!” Madonna said. “You know, I invited her onstage to sing with me. But, she turned me down. It’s okay. I’ve been rejected before. It builds a little character.”

Watch a video of Madonna performing the “Express Yourself” x “Born This Way” mash-up on the MDNA Tour below.

Madonna later squashed the feud in a 2015 Rolling Stone interview, outlining that no one can really take her place in the pop music world. “The only time I ever criticized Lady Gaga was when I felt like she blatantly ripped off one of my songs,” Madonna told Rolling Stone. “It’s got nothing to do with ‘she’s taking my crown’ or ‘she’s in some space of mine.’ She has her thing. I do think she’s a very talented singer and songwriter. It was just that one issue.”

Fashion heals!

Just a few months after the Rolling Stone interview, Madonna cozied up with Lady Gaga and Katy Perry at the Met Gala. The three pop icons posed together for a glamorous pic at fashion’s biggest night and Madonna even shared the photo in a now-deleted Instagram post. “Girls night out………. Kissing the Ring……..Finally!#metball,“ the “Vogue” singer wrote in the post’s caption.

Gaga responded to claims of similarities between her and Madonna in an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 before the release of her Joanne album that year. “Madonna and I are very different,” Gaga said in the interview. “Just say, ‘We’re very different.’ I wouldn’t make that comparison at all and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna, she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic huge career, biggest pop star of all time. But I play a lot of instruments. I write all my own music. I spend hours a day in the studio. I’m a producer. I’m a writer. What I do is different.”

Gaga also tweeted about Madonna’s powerful speech as Billboard’s 2016 Woman of the Year about overcoming adversity as a woman in the music industry. 

In her 2017 documentary, Gaga blatantly addressed the longstanding feud. “I’m Italian and from New York, so if I have a problem, I’m gonna tell you to your face,” she said in the film. “She wouldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that I was reductive or whatever. Telling me you think I’m a piece of sh– through the media? It’s like a guy passing me a note through his friend.”

Still, she claimed to admire her pop predecessor. “So the thing with me and Madonna, for example, is that I admired her always,” Gaga said. “And I still admire her, no matter what she might think of me. I just want Madonna to push me up against the wall and kiss me and tell me I’m a piece of sh–.”

The feud temporarily died down, only to be revisited in 2018. Footage surfaced of Gaga repeating the same line during the press tour for A Star Is Born: “There can be 100 people in the room, and 99 don’t believe in you, but you just need one to believe in you,” Mother Monster said in various different ways at press events that year.

The overused phrase grabbed everyone’s attention, including Madonna’s. In an Instagram Story, the “Like a Prayer” star posted a video of a 1989 interview in which she says, “If there’s 100 people in the room and 99 people said they liked it, I only remember the one person who didn’t.” 

If winning an Oscar wasn’t exciting enough, Lady Gaga was able to publicly squash her longest-standing feud with Madonna the same night.

In 2019, Mother Monster and the Queen of Pop were photographed cuddling at Guy Oseary and Madonna’s annual Oscar’s afterparty. Gaga stopped by the famous bash after winning the Academy Award for best original song for “Shallow” — her first Oscar — earlier in the evening. Photographer JR captured the celebratory embrace between the two stars for TIME. Gaga’s award is featured in the photo as she clutches it in her hands and Madonna tenderly holds Gaga’s smiling face.

See the legendary photo below.

Maybe the real feud was the friends we made along the way?

In a May 2019 interview with British Vogue, Madonna shared that she loves the idea of paving the way for future generations of young female pop stars but that the celebrity gossip train often gets in the way. She then named Gaga as an example of how gossip can stoke a fire that should’ve never been lit to begin with.

“People got very excited about [the thought of Lady Gaga and myself as] enemies, when we never were enemies,” she says.

Madonna believes that the “rivalry” was just another example of society pitting successful women against one another.

Gaga continued the love train in 2023 when she left a comment on Madonna’s TikTok page. The Queen of Pop shared a video thanking fans for their “love and support” after hitting major sales numbers for her Celebration Tour.

“I don’t take any of this for granted,” Madonna said in the TikTok. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. And I’m so grateful for all of your support.”

Gaga responded to Madonna’s heartfelt message with a sweet comment: “We love you M.”

From one innovator to another, Lady Gaga shared that Madonna was one of her inspirations.

While accepting the Innovator Award at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards, Lady Gaga named some of the artists who came before her who paved the way for her artistry and stardom. The Queen of Pop was notably included in the list.

“I wouldn’t be here without my inspirations. David Bowie, Grace Jones, Carole King, Elton John, Lady Starlight,” Gaga says after sharing what innovation means to her. “Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, Cher and, of course, my dear friend Tony Bennett, who taught me to embrace the classics but never be bound by them.”