Topline
Lady Gaga will join the second season of Netflix’s “Wednesday” in an undisclosed role after the singer inadvertently became tied to the show in 2022 when fans used her decade-old song, “Bloody Mary,” in viral edits of scenes from the series.
Lady Gaga’s song “Bloody Mary” went viral after fans used it in edits set to scenes from … [+]
Key Facts
The details of Lady Gaga’s upcoming role are not yet known, but Entertainment Weekly first reported the singer joined the cast and is currently filming in Europe.
The series stars Jenna Ortega as the titular Wednesday Addams, who also serves as a producer.
Ortega said in a 2023 interview, after her dance scene helped “Bloody Mary” go viral, that Netflix would likely “love” to cast Lady Gaga in a second season and said their characters would have to be “two monsters that understand each other.”
Other stars set to return for the Emmy-winning series’ second season include Catherina Zeta-Jones, Isaac Ordonez, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo and Luis Guzman.
Forbes has reached out to representatives for Lady Gaga for comment.
How Did “wednesday” Help Lady Gaga’s “bloody Mary” Go Viral?
“Bloody Mary” was a song included on Lady Gaga’s 2011 album “Born This Way,” though the song was not released as a single at the time, meaning it had no radio airplay and was not heavily promoted by the singer. After “Wednesday” debuted its first season in 2022, a scene of Ortega’s character dancing to “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps went viral, though fans soon posted edits setting Ortega’s dance to a sped-up version of “Bloody Mary”—which doesn’t even appear in the show. The viral videos sparked a TikTok dance trend that both the show and singer acknowledged. “I see you doing my dance moves to @LadyGaga’s Bloody Mary. I understand she is followed by little monsters. I approve,” the official series account tweeted in December 2022. “Slay Wednesday!” Lady Gaga responded in a tweet. The singer recreated the viral dance on TikTok later that month. The week after the series released, streams of the song spiked 415%, Billboard reported. Lady Gaga sent the song to radio stations, and it ultimately peaked at No. 10 on Billboard’s pop radio chart and No. 41 on the Hot 100, 12 years after release. “Bloody Mary” has since racked up 586 million Spotify streams and still ranks among Lady Gaga’s ten most popular songs on the streaming platform. The “Wednesday” dance scene plays when a Spotify user listens to “Bloody Mary” on their mobile device.
Big Number
518 million. That’s how many views a fanmade edit of the “Wednesday” dance set to a sped-up remix of “Bloody Mary” has on YouTube, much more than the 69 million views a video of the actual “Wednesday” dance scene uploaded to YouTube by Netflix has.
Tangent
“Wednesday” will be Lady Gaga’s first acting role since she starred in “Joker: Folie à Deux,” a critically panned box-office disappointment. The courtroom musical drama opened in theaters last month and earned just a 32% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film grossed $206 million worldwide, about a fifth of the billion-dollar grossing “Joker” (2019).
Further Reading
Lady Gaga joins Wednesday season 2 with Jenna Ortega (exclusive) (Entertainment Weekly)
