Lady Gaga Will Not Perform at 2023 Oscars

American singer-actress Lady Gaga will not be performing “Hold My Hand” at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 12.

In a Zoom call with entertainment journalists Wednesday, Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glenn Weiss confirmed Wednesday that the Oscar- and Grammy-winning entertainer, who is nominated this year for her “Top Gun: Maverick” power ballad “Hold My Hand”, will not take the stage to present the song.

He explained Gaga, who landed her fourth career nomination for the “Top Gun: Maverick” song, is busy making a movie and felt that she couldn’t give a performance the time and commitment it would need to meet her expectations.

“We invited all five nominees. We have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp. She is in the middle of shooting a movie right now. Here, we are honoring the movie industry and what it takes to make a movie after a bunch of back and forth…It didn’t feel like she can get a performance to the caliber that we’re used to with her and that she is used to. So, she is not going to perform on the show,” Weiss said.

In the Oscars tradition (most years), all nominated songs are sung during the ceremony. Rihanna (“Lift Me Up”), Sofia Carson and Diane Warren (“Applause”), Stephanie Hsu, David Byrne and Son Lux (“This Is a Life”) and Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava (“Naatu Naatu”) will all be making appearances this year.

As a result, this will be the second Oscar telecast in a row in which one of the five nominated songs was not performed during the ceremony. Last year, Van Morrison declined to perform “Down to Joy” from Belfast.

Gaga has performed at the Oscars three times. In 2015, she performed a medley of four songs from "The Sound of Music" to honor that movie on its 50th anniversary. In a memorable Oscar moment, Julie Andrews came out at the end of Gaga’s performance and the two stars embraced.

In 2016, Gaga sang the nominated song “Til It Happens to You” from "The Hunting Ground". In 2019, she and Bradley Cooper sang “Shallow” from "A Star Is Born", which went on to win the award. The staging of “Shallow” was memorable, with Gaga and Cooper stepping up from their front-row seats to take the stage.

Right now, Gaga is in the midst of filming director Todd Phillips’ "Joker: Folie à Deux". She is playing Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for best actor for playing the title character in 2019's "The Joker". 

Warner Bros. will release the film in theaters Oct. 9, 2024 — five years to the day after the release of the first film.

When she was nominated, Gaga took to social media to share her gratitude. She wrote, “Thank you so much to the Academy for nominating my song ‘Hold My Hand’ for an Oscar this year! Writing this song for the film ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ was a deep and powerful experience that I will never forget. So grateful for the magic of music and cinema.” Giving props to her co-writer Bloodpop, she signed off with, “I’m on set filming now big love to little monsters!”.