Why Isn’t Lady Gaga Performing at the 2023 Oscars?

Bad news, Lady Gaga fans: the pop star is, sadly, not performing her nominated single at the 2023 Oscars. Gaga, who’s up for best original song this year, was expected to potentially perform her “Top Gun: Maverick” contribution, “Hold My Hand.” But on March 8, Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glenn Weiss announced that she will not, in fact, be blessing the stage with her vocals — and there’s a reasonable explanation for why.

“We have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp. She is in the middle of shooting a movie right now,” he said during a creative team press conference, per Variety. “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.”

The movie Gaga is currently filming is the highly-anticipated “Joker” sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux.” It’s still unclear what character the four-time Oscar-nominated star plays in the film installment, but it must be a demanding role considering she was unable to squeeze in rehearsal time for an Oscars performance. The last time she performed at the show was in 2019 when she sang her Oscar-winning song “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born.”

Deadline reported that Gaga told Oscars show producers she only plans to attend this year’s ceremony as a nominee, but there are still some exciting performances to look forward to from four of the five best original song nominees. Rihanna is set to deliver a stunning performance of her “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” track “Lift Me Up”; “Everything Everywhere All at Once”‘s Stephanie Hsu will hit the stage with David Byrne and Son Lux to perform “This Is a Life”; Sofia Carson and Diane Warren will perform a rendition of “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman”; and “RRR”‘s “Naatu Naatu” will also be performed by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava.

The 2023 Oscars airs on ABC on March 12 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.