Lady Gaga says she’s ‘just getting started’ while being honoured at iHeartRadio Awards

Lady Gaga receiving the Innovator Award during the iHeartRadio Music Awards in Los Angeles on March 17, 2025. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

Lady Gaga has seven studio albums under her belt and says that she’s not even close to being done.

The “Abracadabra” singer was honored with the Innovator award during the iHeartRadio Awards on Monday night and during her acceptance speech spoke about how much she appreciated the recognition – even though she didn’t know what to think about winning an award that honored her entire career at 38 years old, calling it a “hard thing to get my head around.”

“On the one hand, I feel like I’ve been doing this forever and on the other hand, I know I’m just getting started,” she said while on stage accepting her award. “So even though the world might consider a woman in her late 30s old for a pop star, which is insane, I promise that I’m just getting warmed up.”

Innovation, she continued, isn’t about breaking rules – it’s “writing your own and convincing the world they were theirs all along.”

“If I have learned anything in (the) three decades I’ve been at this, it’s that the most powerful innovation is your authenticity,” she said. “Every time I was the only woman in the room, the loudest voice was inside my own head telling me not to compromise. Listening to that voice always showed me exactly where I belonged.”

Lady Gaga took some time to thank people who inspired her during her speech, including her “fiercely brilliant” grandmothers, who she said “reinvented their destinies with nothing but strength and dreams and determination.”

She also name-checked other major artists who inspired her, including Carole King, Madonna and her late collaborator Tony Bennett, “who taught me to embrace the classics but never be bound by them.”

She also thanked the LGBTQ+ community, who she said “taught me bravery before the world was ready to listen.”

“Your love, your creativity, your willingness to innovate alongside me is my greatest strength,” she added.

The iHeartRadio Music Awards aired on FOX on Monday night.

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN