Lady Gaga Brings Mayhem Back to Grammys With ‘Abracadabra’

Lady Gaga brought the Mayhem era full circle at the 2026 Grammys with a phenomenal performance of “Abracadabra.” The star, who is up for several awards, also took home the trophy for Best Dance Pop Recording soon after.

Taking the stage in a dramatic ensemble featuring a jacket covered in crimson feathers above a glittering, scaly skirt and her face peering through a broken basket cage, Gaga delivered her soaring single to the ceremony on Sunday. The star finished her performance, set against a backdrop of smoke and mirrors as the camera swiveled and flipped to keep up with her, with a gaze straight into the camera, holding it long after the music stopped.

Last year, Gaga unleashed the surprise global premiere of “Abracadabra” during a commercial break that aired in the middle of the show. The video for the album’s second single played shortly after she took the stage with Bruno Mars to perform the Mamas and the Papas‘ “California Dreamin’” in a special tribute to Los Angeles.

“The category is dance or die,” Gaga said at the start of the “Abracadabra” video. The song left its mark on more than a few other categories, garnering nominations at this year’s show for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Dance Pop Recording. Gaga scored additional nods in Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Mayhem, Best Pop Solo Performance for “Disease,” and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Harlequin.
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“Mayhem as a piece of music, I never would’ve made it without the 10 years of experience that I had,” Gaga told Rolling Stone last year. “Nearly 30, if you count all my years of music. What would Mayhem sound like if I hadn’t become a jazz singer? What would it have sounded like if I hadn’t made Artpop?

“I was willingly and openly running through all the nightmares of my past and my present and just finding poetry in all of it,” she added. “And that was a sign of my health as a musician. One of the things I’m most grateful for is gaining all my artistic faculties back to make this record. I had to dig very, very deep, and I had to change a lot of my life and recenter around what I needed as a human being.”