Bruno Mars was close to scrapping his hit Lady Gaga collab ‘Die With A Smile’, but changed his mind after learning that she was working on Joker: Folie à Deux.
- Read More: ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ review: Lady Gaga shines in a provocative prison musical
Yesterday (Thursday December 4), the track was named Spotify’s top song globally for the year after garnering more than 1.7billion streams, but, as Mars’ collaborators told Variety, it was relegated to the demos pile at one stage and close to being abandoned entirely.
He’d been working with James Fauntleroy (Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake) and Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II (Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson) on the beginnings of the song, which was all but scrapped until they learned of Gaga’s role in the sequel to 2019’s hugely successful Joker.
Released at the end of last year, Gaga starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix, with Mars’ logic being that the song was a good pitch for either that project or her accompanying ‘Harlequin‘ album.
“He was such a genius for pulling that out of the back of his subconscious memory because of the timing of that movie, which is also how Lady Gaga came into his mind as a collaborator,” Fauntleroy said.
“Then when we found out that wasn’t gonna be a thing, he had already kind of started the ball rolling because the power of Bruno compels you,” Fauntleroy added.
They later connecting with Andrew Watt, who was at the time working with Gaga on her sixth album ‘Mayhem‘. Mars invited them to all to come to his Malibu studio, where Gaga set about working on the song immediately.
“She was like, ‘Let’s go to the piano,’” says Fauntleroy. “I knew she could play the piano, but watching her actually sit down like a musician and learn the chords, so much so that she actually asked for a pen and paper and wrote the chords down… This is unheard of. She learned the fucking song, dude, right there.
“And they were performing, singing it together. And that’s when I should have known it was going to be something special.”
Speaking about the fast-paced nature of their work, Watt compared it to “some Quincy-Michael shit,” saying: “Bruno jumping in the booth, then her jumping in the booth and going back and forth. There was a point where we were all on guitars and she was on the piano. It was like being in Fleetwood Mac or something.”
Gaga previously told the L.A. Times the track felt like the “missing piece” to ‘Mayhem’, and when asked if the track connected to Joker: Folie à Deux and companion album ‘Harlequin’, replied: “I don’t think so. I mean, this was not meant to be for that. But that was happening in my life at the time we wrote it and made it, so it’s hard to say no entirely because these things always ricochet off each other.”
‘Mayhem’ landed at Number 19 on NME‘s 50 Best Songs of 2025: “Before releasing ‘Mayhem’, Lady Gaga expressed apprehension about returning to the sound her fans first fell in love with.
“Naturally, the record was a return to form so assured that all those anxieties dissolved, the self-doubt probed and ultimately drowned out by a flurry of edgy, theatric synth-pop bangers.”
