CULTURE

Lady Gaga Finally Reclaims the Record Carly Rae Jepsen Stole From Her 7 Years Ago

Thanks to the massive success of "Shallow."

Feb. 13, 2019

Dan MacMedan/Getty Images

It took nearly seven whole years, but Lady Gaga has finally gotten her revenge on Carly Rae Jepsen. The (friendly) drama dates back to 2011, when Gaga released “Born This Way,” which immediately shot to the top of the charts, eventually setting a new record for Gaga after staying number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list for six weeks.

The following year, Jepsen released a poppy earworm of her own, in the form of “Call Me Maybe.” When that song surpassed Gaga’s six-week stint at the top of the Billboard chart, Gaga sent a vaguely threatening (in a fun way!) tweet to her fellow pop princess. “I SEE you just swooped in and broke my BORN THIS WAY record of the most weeks at #1. DONT GET COMFORTABLE IM COMING FOR YOU,” she wrote.

This week, the better part of a decade later, Gaga finally made good on her ominous promise. Though she didn’t reclaim the Billboard record Jepsen once stole from her, Gaga and her Grammy-winning song “Shallow,” that instant-classic duet with Bradley Cooper from A Star Is Born, did break another of Jepsen’s smash hit’s achievements. According to pop culture-documenting Twitter account Music News Facts, “Shallow” has officially topped “Call Me Maybe’s” reign on the iTunes charts. The latter reportedly spent 100 days as the number one song on the iTunes Worldwide list, but on Tuesday, “Shallow” logged its 101st day at the top of the same chart, taking over its position as the fifth longest-running song in that position.

Neither Jepsen nor Gaga has reacted to Gaga’s delayed revenge plot, but perhaps they’ll celebrate by finally teaming up for the collaboration the pop-loving world has been waiting for since the day “Call Me Maybe” dropped. Both artists are scheduled to release new albums sometime this year, and could certainly find some room on each for that inevitably impeccable duet.

If not, Jepsen could always bring this story full circle by joining Gaga onstage at the Oscars to perform “Shallow” live. Cooper would probably be more than happy to let Jepsen take over, since, as he recently told E! News of the upcoming performance, “I’m sure I’ll be terrified.”