Lady Gaga gave audiences a million reasons to tear up at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
During the March 17 ceremony, the 38-year-old accepted the iHeartRadio Innovator Award—whose past recipients have included Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars—and tenderly thanked her fiancé Michael Polanskyfor his support during her speech. (Click here to see the full list of winners from the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards.)
“My fiancé and partner, Michael,” she shared, “your love, your creativity, your willingness to innovate alongside me is my greatest strength.”
Gaga also paid tribute to her family for being her guiding light.
“Every time I was the only woman in the room, the loudest voice was inside my own head telling me not to compromise,” she said from the stage. “Listening to that voice always showed me exactly where I belonged. And tonight, I think of my grandmothers, fiercely brilliant Italian American women who reinvented their destinies with nothing but strength and dreams and determination.”
She continued, “They didn’t invent technology or art, they invented possibility, shaping the future with nothing more than their minds and those women, my ancestors, they’re the greatest innovators that I’ve ever known.”
While the 14-time Grammy winner moved the crowd with her touching speech about her ancestors and her partner, Michael—who was introduced to Gaga in 2019 by her momCynthia Germanotta—has been a mainstay of her conversations as of late, including in the retelling of their engagement.
“He said to me, ‘If I ever proposed to you, how do I do that?’” Gaga (real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) told E! Newsearlier this month. “And I said, ‘Just get a blade of grass from the backyard and wrap it around my finger.’ And he did. He did that when he proposed.”
That special moment meant so much to the couple that it became the basis for her new song “Blade of Grass,” which the tech businessman helped write, in addition to six other songs from her latest album Mayhem, which was released on March 7.
“It was cool. He’s my partner,” Gaga continued. “It’s a totally different experience when you’re writing with your partner.”
Noting that it’s cool that their collaboration now gets to “gets to last forever” and she hopes “one day our kids will hear it,” Gaga added, “‘It’s so special. That’s about your dad.’”
But Gaga’s future with Michael—including their upcoming nuptials—isn’t all she’s googoo for. After all, she looks back fondly on the beginning of their relationship as well.
“I met this totally supportive, loving human being who wanted to get to know me—outside of Lady Gaga,” she told Vogue in September. “He’s so smart and so kind. He’s a very private guy and he’s not with me for any other reason than that we are right for each other.”
Read on to look at more stars at the iHeartRadio Music Awards…
Kelsea Ballerini
In Alexandre Vauthier.
Mariah Carey
FINNEAS & Billie Eilish
Doechii
JoJo Siwa
In Versace.
Bad Bunny
Gracie Abrams
In Khaite.
GloRilla
In Valdrin Sahiti.
Becky G
In The New Arrivals RE25.
Jenny McCarthy
In Genny.
Nikki Glaser
In Stella McCartney.
Benson Boone
Tori Spelling
Ashanti & Nelly
Ashanti in Balmain.
Victoria Monét
Brandi Cyrus
In Dolce & Gabbana.
Cheryl Burke
LL Cool J
Chanel West Coast
Madison Beer
Hair styled using OGX products.
Offset
AJ McLean
Daniel Wai & Ariana Madix
Ariana in Miraco jewelry.
Janet Caperna & Brittany Cartwright
James Charles
Joel McHale
Robin Thicke
Muni Long
Linkin Park’s Emily Armstrong, Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda & Colin Brittain
Tori Kelly
