"I almost didn’t put that on the album" - When Lady Gaga nearly cut a fan-favourite track from Mayhem

Lady Gaga almost cut fan-favorite track, How Bad Do U Want Me, from her album, Mayhem, which she recently released on March 7. During a March 12 episode of Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, Gaga revealed that her fiance, Michael Polansky, convinced her not to remove the track.

"Oh my God, I almost didn't put that on the album. Michael and I started that song at home, but I started it first, and he heard me singing it, and he walks in the kitchen and goes, 'Is that about me?' and I was like, 'No?'"

Michael Polansky and Lady Gaga started dating in 2019, and Gaga confirmed her engagement to the tech founder and investor in July 2024. She mentioned that the two worked on the song together:

"And he came in and (we) started to finish it together, and that song embodies a feeling that I've probably had my whole life. I've always felt archetyped as the 'bad girl.' It's why the lyric is kind of funny."

The song explores how her lover is infatuated with another version of herself—the "bad girl" archetype, with ripped-up jeans—while the "good girl" archetype exists in his head, leading him to compare one with the other.

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"I was not sure if I should put that on the record," says Lady Gaga about How Bad Do U Want Me

While revealing that she almost removed the track from her newly released Mayhem album, Lady Gaga mentioned that it was her fiancé, Michael Polansky, who insisted the song be included:

"I was not sure that I should put that on the record, and Michael, was like, 'You have to - your fans are going to love that song."

Mayhem is Gaga's seventh studio album, released on March 7 via Interscope Records. While speaking to Vogue in November 2024, Gaga described Mayhem as a dark pop album, an ode to some of her earlier music:

"The album is chaotic from a genre perspective - it is genre-bending, and I think in that way is a deeply personal look in my mind as a producer and the way I think about music."

In another recent interview with Elle, Lady Gaga shared that the album is inspired by industrial music and credited several artists—including David Bowie, Prince, and Radiohead—as key influences.