Music

Right-wingers accuse Lady Gaga of ‘Satanism’ after Coachella set, and we’ve never been so back

Apr 14
Written by Alastair James

Lady Gaga performs with a skeleton piano at Coachella

Lady Gaga’s Coachella performance has been widely praised – despite reductive accusations of “Satanism”. (Getty)

Here we go again! If right-win pushback to Lady Gaga’s Coachella 2025 set demon-strates one thing, it’s that she is fully back, and we’re living for it.

The “Abracadabra” singer took to the Coachella stage over the weekend for the first of two headliner slots for the California-based festival. Among the highlights was the tune from her critically-lauded album Mayhem in which Mother Monster appeared in a multi-storey skirt hiding a cage full of dancers.

Then in “Zombieboy” Gaga danced with skeletons in a more literal realisation of the song. The set also included tracks from Born This Way and The Fame – with Chromatica, Artpop and Joanne absent – for a five-act set full of fantastical and dramatic showmanship, the kind we’ve come to expect from Gaga.

And it’s safe to say fans ate it up! One commented on TikTok: “This is now officially the best Coachella performance.” Meanwhile, someone else watching from afar insisted: “I’m not jealous, I’m not jealous, I’M NOT JEALOUS”.

Critics were similarly stunned. The Guardian gave Gaga five stars for what it called “a thrilling all-timer of a performance.” The BBC said the “Applause” hitmaker “wows” the festival, while Variety wrote she outdid herself with the performance.

@pressedpapershop GAGA HAS ARRIVED 😩😩 #ladygaga #ladygagacoachella #coachellalineup #coachella2025 ♬ original sound – pressedpapershop

Predictably, the show wasn’t to everyone’s liking. The set has attracted criticism from some of the more right-wing corners of the internet for its supposed “Satanic style.”

One X (formerly Twitter) account derided Gaga’s second Coachella set as a “Satanic ritualistic style performance,” designed to appeal to young people to make witchcraft seem “cool, hip, and the new trend”.

Another faceless account with 50,000 plus followers wrote on the Elon Musk-owned platform: “This is no accident and goes hand in hand with the overall agenda.

“From dangerous body-mutilating ideologies, grooming, and the sexualization of children being pushed to the front of the agenda in Hollywood, all over the media, in schools, which now have an after schools Satan group, starting for children in KINDERGARTEN.”

The breakdown of Lady Gaga and Satanism in the industry. Lady Gaga is known for her Satanic style which stems from her passion in Satanism which was highly influenced and taught to her by none other than Marina Abramovic, who is also into Satanism, Spirit Cooking and performs all… pic.twitter.com/uKiOmF56qc
— The SCIF (@TheIntelSCIF) April 13, 2025

This is a clear reference to the trans and drag communities, both of which have long been the targets of those on the right. Especially in the United States, both groups, as well as the LGBTQ+ community at large, have come under sustained attack for some time with many pieces of strict and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being brought in across the country.

“Yes this is the goal,” the account went on. “This is their God. They’re either worshiping Satan in theistic Satanism, or are Luciferians and want to be gods themselves. It doesn’t matter what you think or believe, one bit. How absurd it sounds, or anything else. It doesn’t matter.”

The account also names Sam Smith, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, and Lil Nas X as also pushing a Satanic “agenda”. It concluded: “This is the only way you get famous, you have to join the club. It’s so obvious and out in the open anymore. I feel bad for the people who are still asleep. It’s time to wake up.”

Another poster on X added: “This is NOT art. This is NOT theater. This IS demonic and it must end.”

Lady Gaga, like other pop stars including Madonna and Doja Cat, has been subjected to unfounded “Satanism” criticism since the early days of her career.