A lot of the songs have a maroon, brown colour to them. Bad Romance was like that – it was reddish.

She adds ‘the record just feels good to me. It sounds good. It breaks a lot of rules and has a lot of fun’.

When making music Gaga sees a wall of colour – a phenomenon known as synaesthesia. ‘As I’m writing, it assembles in my brain, then through the recording it becomes a full piece of colour. Every song is a different shade. A lot of the songs on this album have a maroon, brown colour to them. Bad Romance was like that – it was reddish.’

I ask how she knows if a song is going to be a hit as I’ve no doubt so many tracks on this album will be. ‘There are great records that I make that will have their moment of completion and I’ll go, “It’s not a hit, but I love it.” Other records, I’ll just know that it has everything it needs. A hit is very powerful at conveying that the energy in the artist is going to get transferred into the listener.’

Whereas in the past Gaga might have approached a new album with a fully formed idea of the work she’s about to make, knowing what it’s going to be called and even what the art will look like, with this, she tells me ‘I was actually pretty hard on myself about not walking into the studio with any preconceived ideas that I was going to strangle onto.’

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‘Mayhem is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to. And in that way, it was about following the songs. Writing as many songs as I did for this album was a labour of total love. And then you just have to be very cutthroat by the end.’

Unlike other tortured poets and their 31-track albums, Gaga is a ruthless self-editor. ‘You just snip anything that’s not good enough. It’s kind of like that wall of colour I was describing where I go, ‘Okay, I could see how we could take that out and then this energy could move like this.”‘

She confesses that up until now she had always felt it was her stage name Gaga, and that part of her that created the music. Now she recognises ‘it came from me. I’m the creator, and I made all of it, and that helped me to value myself as a musician and a songwriter in a deeper way.’ I ask if this realisation means she might drop the stage name? She looks aghast at the suggestion (phew!) and rushes to say, ‘No! I love being Lady Gaga. I love being me. I just mean that I became a star when I was 20. Everything gets reflected back to you that this [personae] is what makes you special.’

We talk about this separation of public and private self and how over two decades it has affected her. She admits to having ‘a broken feeling’ about some of the mental health issues she’s had in her life. ‘I feel some embarrassment and that’s a very vulnerable thing to share. But I think through making this album, I was able to really love myself through all of that. Confronting the music was a way of confronting some of the things I’ve been through, and going, “It’s okay that that’s who you are” and celebrating it about myself instead of trying to pretend it’s not real.’

She tells me that making Mayhem was a process of rediscovery. ‘The chaos I thought was long gone is actually fully intact and ready to greet me whenever I’d like. Part of the message of even the first song on the album is that your demons are with you in the beginning, and they are with you in the end and I don’t mean it in a bleak way. Maybe we can make friends sooner with this reality instead of running all the time.’

I wonder if embracing the darkness inside of her and tracing its shadows, rather than trying to kill it with the artificial brightness of a spotlight, has allowed Gaga to let in something softer, more natural, closer to sunshine.

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She’s valuing the small moments at home with her friends, her dogs, her fiancé Michael Polansky as much – if not more than the performances. ‘Everyday poetry’ she calls it. She explains that even though the Disease video is so dark in a way, the process of creating it wasn’t painful. ‘It was easier to make it [once she was at peace with the darkness]. It felt really fun and celebratory. Like throwing a party for all your demons.’

After the interview, Gaga introduces me to 41-year-old Polansky, a venture capitalist. Gaga’s mother set the pair up after meeting him at a charity event and telling her daughter ‘I’ve met your future husband.’ She hit the jackpot. Michael has a kind face and a gentle energy I rarely get from straight men. He also reads as completely un-celebrity coded (despite being a multi-millionaire himself); more like a good-looking Dad you might chat to on the school run.

‘What did you think of the music?’ he asks me, wrapping an arm proudly around his wife-to-be. He grins when I say I love it then laughs, because it’s not as if he made it.

‘You helped me loads though,’ Gaga says, staring lovingly up at him. ‘You helped write like seven songs!’

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Later Polansky and I talk on the phone. He says: ‘It’s been one of the most incredible parts of this chapter of my life, to live with and coexist alongside someone making art and being creative in ways that very few people get to experience. I think of myself as really lucky to have been there for it.’ He’s loved watching her evolve in the years they’ve known each other, and particularly he says, ‘return to finding a lot of joy in making art, performing, and writing music.’

I ask what she’s been like to live with during the making of Mayhem, imagining it might be hard for her to shift out of creative mode into the domestic. But it sounds like it was a great, collaborative process: ‘This album was so much fun to watch her make. She recorded it right down the street from our house, so we could easily walk back and forth from the studio. I spent a lot of time with her at the studio, bringing my laptop to work while she was there. The thing that surprised me most was how fast she is. I couldn’t believe how quickly a song would take shape. Within five minutes, 80 percent of the song would have come from nothing, and then, listening to the finished tracks a year later, I’d remember how quickly the idea came out of her.’

I’m interested in what it’s like navigating a relationship with someone so famous. He says, ‘accepting that you won’t have the privacy others might have, was the hardest part. But Stephanie’s comfort with it and patience with me has been amazing. Our relationship is probably a lot like everyone else’s. We just have to figure out how to do some of it in public. That makes it even more important for us to have strong friendships and close family relationships. We find normalcy where we can.’

With Polansky, Gaga’s life has a different colour to it, it’s more wholesome. ‘He used to say to me when we first met, “You are a special human being when the cameras aren’t on you. And I get to see that all the time”‘, she tells me.

They love to host at their LA home. ‘We make pasta together, we roast things. We also really like making simple dishes with Michael’s Mom, who lives nearby.’

It’s no secret that Gaga gets on well with older people, (‘I loved Tony Bennett‘) and calls her own mother one of her best friends alongside Michael’s mother Ellen. ‘She and I have built our friendship by sharing our life experiences with each other. And not all of it has been about my career, you know. It’s about the way we grew up, being a woman in the workplace, what her experience was like, and what mine is like, and kind of tracking different generations.’

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She tells me a story: ‘A while ago my friend Margo was over and we were talking about lots of things, but at some point I also was like, “oh, you know, I shot a video” and I showed her Disease and she was smiling. And then she said to me, “You know, this girl [the one violently writhing around while chained to a pole, and the bloody-eyed, latex-clad demon puking up black bile]… well she also makes great broccoli.”

‘And it was a really special sweet moment where somebody that I love and care about knows that as much as I wanted her to like my video, that making her dinner was the number one joy of my evening.’

Joy. There’s a lot more of it in her life these days. She’s finding it in ‘real conversations, real relationships, the authentic stories that we share with each other.’ She adds ‘I think there’s an element of “fake it til you make it” all the time in life… But I also believe in being real with yourself and with people around you. And I think sometimes when we have those real conversations, we can feel less alone.’

It’s these genuine connections and the power of community that Lady Gaga believes will get us through the next four years of a Trump presidency.

We meet six days after the results of the American election are announced. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mayhem has been unleashed on a global stage – no one could accuse Gaga of not reading the room. ‘What’s bizarre is I did not write this album thinking that this would happen. I prayed it would not. But here we are.’

Gaga endorsed Kamala Harris. She also performed at Biden’s inauguration in 2021 which she has previously called one of the proudest moments of her life. I ask how she’s been feeling.

‘The main thing is I have so much compassion and love for so many people that are afraid today. I want to acknowledge I’m a very blessed person and I feel really grateful for so much in my life every day. I know for a lot of people this election was devastating for their existence and so community is going to be the number one thing. This just reminds me that we need each other and supporting each other is important. I am one of many people that supports [the LGBTQIA+ and other marginalised] communities. And we’re not going down without a fight. We will stick together. It’s going to be hard but I’m up for it. We’re up for it. And I just want everyone to know how deeply they’re loved and not invisible.’

She has been thinking a lot over the last few days that whatever her small part is she just wants to believe that it matters, and it does make a difference to people. ‘That means: reaching out to people that I love, being available, understanding that what I’m going through is very different from so many people that I care about. That’s been important for me, yes, I’m devastated, but what does it mean for me versus someone else?’

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So, while her plan might be small, consistent actions and supporting grassroots communities, it doesn’t mean that she won’t be speaking out. ‘Maybe because I’ve been doing this since I was 20, I have realised that what you say publicly from a big microphone is sometimes just as powerful as what you say in private. Who you are in the public facing eye is who you want to be when no one’s looking.’

The music industry has changed so much since Lady Gaga released her first album The Fame in 2008. Social media, the rise of streaming and now, finally, music’s own Me Too moment with some high-profile people being held accountable for their abuse of power. Pop, right now, is celebrating strong female solo artists like never before and giving them the space, we hope, to be themselves rather than fit a mould of ‘femininity’. Whether they’re queer like Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan, or not about to stand for any bullshit like Charli XCX – Lady Gaga undoubtedly paved the way for female popstars to own their narrative.

She says, ‘other women in pop music, I don’t know what their experience will be like, but what I hope for them is that they will know as soon as possible that their whole life matters.

‘If I could tell them anything, it would be that the whole you matters. Who you are at home is just as valuable as who you are when you’re on stage. And no matter what anyone says to you, you can value who you are outside of all of this.’

She takes a beat then adds, ‘I’ve been in this business for years. Being a woman and a product at the same time was really exhausting.

‘What do you mean by product?’ I ask.

‘My music, my image… was sold.’

Of course, it still is, and that must affect her psyche in a way no non-world-famous person can really comprehend.

The artwork for the new album plays with this duality, but it’s not as simple as public and private, good and bad, light and dark – it is about what she calls a ‘radical acceptance’ of all of it – of the mayhem. She says she’s ‘having a lot of fun exploring imagery that is different from things that I’ve done before. Things that used to really scare me are now really exciting.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, playing with transgressive and challenging themes that make me think of my own anxiety. I couldn’t do that for a really long time. And now it’s just what I naturally want to do. it’s interesting that I could go through a period of being afraid as a person and wanting nothing to do with those themes and then feeling good now and being like, “let’s do all this dark stuff.”‘

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I want to better understand what this idea of radical acceptance means to Gaga. It comes up a lot during our chat and feels key to the message she wants to convey about who and how she feels about her life and art right now. She explains, ‘I’m not going to torture myself [about the existence of her demons]. I’m going to celebrate.’

How would you have tortured herself previously, I ask. ‘Trying to escape. I used to drink a lot and smoke a lot, and I was always looking for an out. I used to call it the trap door. I used to be like, “I need an escape route.” And I stopped doing that. And I actually started feeling it. Being present. As an artist, it’s hard to go through that and not want to share that with my fans.’

We talk about failure, not a word I associate with the megastar. But her latest film Joker: Folie à Deux has had mixed reviews. ‘People just sometimes don’t like some things,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘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.’ She adds that the fear of failure is what can be really damaging: ‘When that makes its way into your life, that can be hard to get control of. It’s part of the mayhem.’

Embracing demons, darkness, nightmares, the sprawling id that bubbles just below the surface in all of us reminds Gaga of her love for Alexander McQueen, Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness. There are amazing artists throughout history who had a relationship to dark poetry as a way of feeling alive. But for Gaga, there were several years when she lost track of where the darkness began and ended. ‘It was everywhere all the time. And that was not a sustainable life.’

‘So now the darkness is more specific or channelled?’ I suggest.

‘Yeah, channel it in the music and on stage, but then in my life…’

‘… you’re making the broccoli?’

‘Exactly!’

It remains to be seen just how being in this new place will affect Gaga’s style and approach to fashion. On the ELLE shoot she brought her own looks from home to try out and she’s not about to stop having fun with the more outlandish costumes we love her for – in fact the eponymous character of Mayhem who haunts this album and drives the car in the Disease video presents ample opportunities to play with gothic subversion. But, Gaga tells me ‘I’m just trying to feel as in my skin as possible and not like I’m performing all the time.’

She adds, ‘I feel really at ease about fashion and clothes. For me, I’m at a place in my life where I just want to feel like myself in clothes. Whatever that means. So if that’s changing, I just want to go with that feeling.’

Most recently she’s been wearing a lot of baby doll dresses because she’s become fascinated with porcelain dolls. ‘They’re so fragile. And they’re beautiful too.’ She used to be scared of them, and we agree they’re pretty freaky, but as with so many things now she’s leaning into that old fear and reclaiming it.

The artist Marina Abramovich who Gaga admires and has worked with before, once said that ‘art has to be disturbing, art has to ask a question, and art has to predict the future.’ I ask if she agrees.

‘Personally, I don’t think all art has to be disturbing. I do think a lot of powerful art asks questions. And I would say, yes, art can lead us into the future, or it can reject the future. Sometimes it’s incredibly nostalgic, classic… but then sometimes art is the moment. When music and fashion and the moment collide to create something that feels true and real – it’s not about adhering to a vibe necessarily. It’s about something being an actual reflection of who we are. Art is a lot of things and that’s part of the joy of it to me – that it could be whatever I want.’

As for the artistry of the new live show, watch this space – it’s going to be incredible. ‘People are buying a ticket to see me. So, I want their ticket to be worth it. They work hard at their jobs. And they work hard to take care of their families. And they spend their hard-earned money on me. So, I just want to do a good job.’

And how does she take care of herself during the gruelling experience of touring and in the run up to it? She says the usual – healthy eating, exercise, but she adds something I’ve rarely heard an international popstar speak to – that health and happiness comes from living what she calls a ‘full life’ more than any wellness rituals.

‘During the Chromatica Ball, that was the first time I had that much enjoyment on a tour. And it was because the focus was not entirely on the show. I was asking, “How can I go out in the city that I’m in and be part of the local art community or see what’s happening here, talk to strangers in the neighbourhood? How can I spend time with people?”‘

She says that on previous tours – perhaps those without the grounding influence of her partner – it had been easy for her to fully fall into her relationship with the public, which inevitably creates an ‘us and them’ dynamic and elevates her to godlike status and everyone else to worshipers – something she’s never been comfortable with. Seeking out real connection, community, relationships with all sorts of different people has helped her redress the balance. ‘Now touring is more about me as a total human. And it makes the experience on stage even more powerful because by the time I get there, I’ve been doing other things that I can think about. I relate to the audience as real people because I’ve lived a real life.’

Family has always been a steadying force for Gaga. But now, for the first time, she’s considering starting her own with Michael. She says, ‘Family – it’s like the roots of the tree. They grow long, and sometimes they’re mangled, and sometimes they’re full with water, and sometimes they’re thirsty. Family is what makes you who you are, and it also defines your need for change.’

‘If you were to have a child,’ I ask Gaga as she takes a sip of her iced coffee, ‘what would you want them to most understand or appreciate about you as an artist and also as a person as they grew up?’

It’s not an easy question, but as has been my experience of Lady Gaga during our time together, she has a thoughtful answer: ‘I would want my children to understand that whatever my artistry means to them is totally up to them. I would never actually want to shape it or tell them how to think about me. Maybe other than that I just did my best. And tried to stay true to myself along the way. That’s something Michael and I have talked about a lot – allowing our kids to be their own people. It’s such an intense thing for kids coming into the world. And they’re told how to think and what to believe in and how to eat…I just kind of want to let my kids find out who they are.’

Unless that is, she jokes, they want to be a popstar – then Gaga thinks the Tiger Mom is coming out and she’s putting a stop to that idea pronto!

‘My kid might one day say “Mom, why do you do these things? I saw a funny video of you dressed up.” Most certainly that will happen. And you know, maybe it’s okay to say, “What do you think?”‘

As a parent to a six-year-old myself I warn Gaga that kids will bring you down to earth with a thud. In fact, I go as far as to show her a note my daughter has written to the popstar on hearing that I will be interviewing her on Saturday afternoon not taking her to the toy shop as planned. ‘Lady Gaga’ it reads in pink pen. ‘I like you but your [sic] not the best.’

Yep, I say – kids are endlessly humbling. Gaga thinks the note is hilarious, ‘Oh, I’m ready,’ she says, folding the scrap of paper and putting it in her jacket pocket for those moments, we laugh, when she’s getting too big for her boots.

I’m so pleased Gaga has a great sense of humour – not least because that note could have really backfired otherwise. I take the opportunity to ask if she has a favourite meme of herself. ‘I like “bus, club, another club” because it’s me saying something about how hard I work, but it comes across in this really funny way. So, there’s something good at the heart of it.’

As ELLE Magazine enters its 40th year, Lady Gaga is also just two years away from her fourth decade. So what, I wonder, is she most interested in understanding about herself at 40?

‘This is going to be the most weird answer. I’d actually like things to be less about me. I really want to be there for people around me as much as I can. That’s the thing that makes me the most happy. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be an artist. But I think the thing I’d like in my forties is to discover all the ways I can show up better for people in my life. All the ways that I can create positivity and joy. Music’s just one way that I do it.’

For Gaga a ‘full life’ in the not too distant future will involve ‘me and Michael and our kids’ she states without a shadow of doubt. ‘It’s funny; sometimes I worry people will say I’m boring these days, but honestly thank God I’m boring. Thank God! Because I was living on the edge. I don’t know what was going to happen to me living that way. So, the fact that I have these answers, on the one hand, I’m like, “oh man, snooze fest!” But actually, I’m so grateful. Because I found a sense of happiness and joy that is true to me.’

An edited version of this interview appears in the March interview of ELLE UK, on newsstands February 6.

Lotte Jeffs is the author of This Love, out in paperback this month.

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