Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars sing together for the first time in their love song ballad “Die With a Smile,” a new stand-alone single and music video released Thursday.
In the video, Gaga and Mars perform the song on a retro stage with guitar and keys. Mars dons a cowboy hat, and Gaga makes a statement in bright red tights.
The duo also surprised fans with a special live performance of their new collaboration at Mars’ Thursday grand opening show at the new Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
Rumors regarding a Gaga-Mars collab have circled the Internet for several days, and the two singers confirmed the news with a post on social media earlier Thursday.
In her announcement, Gaga said the song was for fans “while you wait for LG7,” her hotly anticipated new album which does not yet have a release date.
“Die With a Smile” is also some of the first new music released in years from both artists. Lady Gaga released a collaborative album with Tony Bennett in 2021 and her Top Gun: Maverick hit “Hold My Hand” in 2022, but her last major solo music was Chromatica in 2020. Mars won two Grammys for his Silk Sonic project with Anderson .Paak in 2022, and his last major solo release was nearly a decade ago in 2016.
“Bruno and I have a lot of mutual respect for each other and were talking about collaborating,” Gaga said in a press release. “I was finishing up my own album in Malibu and one night after a long day he asked me to come to his studio to hear something he was working on. It was around midnight when I got there and I was blown away when I heard what he had started making. We stayed up all night and finished writing and recording the song. Bruno’s talent is beyond explanation. His musicianship and vision is next level. There’s no one like him.”
Mars added, “Getting to work with Gaga has been an honor. She’s an icon and she makes this song magical. I’m so excited for everyone to hear it.”
“Die With a Smile” is co-produced by the pair along with D’Mile and Andrew Watt. The video is directed by Daniel Ramos and Mars.
Gaga will next be seen alongside Joaquin Phoenix in the upcoming Joker: Folie À Deux, which will feature her singing, though she teased recently it will be “unlike anything I’ve done before.”
“People know me by my stage name, Lady Gaga, right? That’s me as that performer, but that is not what this movie is,” Gaga told Empire. “I’m playing a character. So I worked a lot on the way that I sang to come from Lee, and to not come from me as a performer…. How do you take music and have it just be an extension of the dialogue, as opposed to breaking into song for no conceivable reason?”
