Lady Gaga Rocks New Title – Woman Of The Year For ‘Billboard’

For Mother Monster, the accolades continue. Billboard has just announced that they are honoring Lady Gaga with their annual Woman of the Year award.

Lifetime, the female-centric channel, has just inked a three-year agreement with the music magazine to televise their Women In Music event, which marks the first time the event will be brought to a television audience. In snagging the Woman of the Year honor, Lady Gaga admitted she was flattered by the win.

I can't believe @billboard named me Woman of the year thank you so much ?????? I am so so so so grateful. My gosh good morning! ??

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) September 29, 2015

To be sure, Billboard’s new Woman of the Year has had a stellar few months. From winning a Grammy for her rendition of “Anything Goes” with Tony Bennett, which entered the top 10 July 29, to scoring a Number 1 hit with Til It Happens To You, the featured song from The Hunting Ground, Lady Gaga has definitely had a busy year. In addition to her musical performances, the new Woman of the Year has also penned an op-ed with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, urging action on the campus rape problem, and she is also featured in American Horror Story: Hotel as the Countess.

This award has launched Lady Gaga into the same elite company as Taylor Swift, Pink, Katy Perry, and Beyonce, who have all snagged Woman of the Year honors previously. In addition, Rolling Stone named Lady Gaga Artist of the Decade on their Coverwall for the decade starting in 2010, and the decade hasn’t finished yet.

Janice Min, co-president and chief creative officer of Guggenheim Media’s Entertainment Group, which owns Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, said that she was incredibly impressed by Lady Gaga’s range of events over the course of 2015.

“From her show-stopping performance at the Oscars, to her co-headlining tour, to her philanthropic outreach and foundation promoting youth wellbeing and empowerment, to her new role as TV star, there is no woman dominating popular culture tastes and its evolution as much as she is today. What a force,” she noted in a statement, according to USA Today.

In addition to her current year’s activities, the new Woman of the Year established the Born This Way Foundation, which works to promote youth well-being and empowerment, Glamour reports. Her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, is president of the foundation, which works to empower youth in its quest to end bullying.

Lady Gaga said in 2013 that she hoped she would be remembered more for her activism – specifically for the Born This Way Foundation – than for her singing. According to Glamour, Billboard’s new Woman of the Year said that if people referred to her by her given name – Stefani – they did not really know her at all. She noted that she had changed her name to Gaga for performance purposes for a reason, and Stefani was reserved solely for people whom she was closest to. Lady Gaga said that was part of her growth experience as an artist.

“This is part of what my message is—you can become whoever you want to be, to escape your past,” she said.

Regardless of the reasons why Billboard‘s new Woman of the Year changed her name to Lady Gaga, it’s clear that she has a stellar future ahead. With both the video and the song Til It Happens To You creating huge response across the globe, in addition to Lady Gaga’s tireless work as an activist on many fronts and her appearances on American Horror Story: Hotel, there is no doubt that Lady Gaga, Woman of the Year, will continue to make her mark on any industry she chooses to put her trademark spin on.

(Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images Sport)