It’s been years since we’ve seen a Lady Gaga video in full glory. Sure, she’s shared performance recordings and appeared in films—but the kind of musical visuals with her signature drama and theatrics? Not since her “911” short film in 2020.
That changed last night with the release of her “Disease” music video, just days after the new single dropped. Marking the start of a new era for her next album (for now, fans are calling it LG7), she went all out.
The visuals, directed by Tanu Muino, offer the kind of over-the-top spectacle you’d expect from Gaga (the fashion! the commitment to theme!), but with a notably dark feel. The singer battles multiple versions of herself throughout: a Gaga in a high-fashion gimp suit hits another Gaga with her car; two Gagas brawl in the street; a different Gaga stands atop her clone’s back while handcuffed to the ceiling; yet another Gaga emerges in a pool of black vomit and convulses in an alley.
It’s haunting, and at times disturbing, but the real Gaga explained her personal inspiration behind the concept. “I think a lot about the relationship I have with my own inner demons. It’s never been easy for me to face how I get seduced by chaos and turmoil. It makes me feel claustrophobic,” she wrote on Instagram last night when the video premiered.
“Disease is about facing that fear, facing myself and my inner darkness, and realizing that sometimes I can’t win or escape the parts of myself that scare me. That I can try and run from them but they are still part of me and I can run and run but eventually I’ll meet that part of myself again, even if only for a moment.”
But she continued the post with an empowering message. “Dancing, morphing, running, purging. Again and again, back with myself. This integration is ultimately beautiful to me, because it’s mine and I’ve learned to handle it. I am the conductor of my own symphony. I am every actor in the plays that are my art and my life. No matter how scary the question, the answers are inside of me. Essential, inextricable parts of what makes me me. I save myself by keeping going. I am the whole me, I am strong, and I am up for the challenge.”
And she ended with a timely greeting for her spooky video: “Happy Halloween.”
Watch the full video for “Disease” above.
