Only days after her appearance at the Oscars, part-time vampire, part-time monster, and full-time artiste Lady Gaga uploaded a photo to Instagram in which she revealed an anecdote that blueprints how every friend and family member of a survivor of sexual assault should support their loved one.
In the post, Gaga described the reactions of two family members—her aunt and her grandmother—the morning after her performance of her Oscar-nominated anthem “Til it Happens to You,” a song about sexual assault featured in the documentary The Hunting Ground, at the 88th Academy Awards.
Gaga herself is a survivor, which she made public in an interview in 2014. As she noted in the gram, her own self-perpetuated feelings of shame and guilt, which as reported by the U.S. Department of Veterans are typical of post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors, prevented her from telling various relatives.
During her powerful rendition, dozens of survivors stepped out behind a parted curtain and slowly walked forward onstage, each of them with messages of hope and strength written on their arms.
“The morning after the Oscars when I talked to my grandmother Ronnie, with tears in her eyes I could hear them welling through the phone she said to me ‘My darling granddaughter, I’ve never been more proud of you than I am today.’ Something I have kept a secret for so long that I was more ashamed of than anything—became the thing the women in my life were the most proud of. And not just any women, the ones I look up to the most.”
Many have called Gaga’s performance, which was received with a standing ovation, the most important part of the awards ceremony.
Image via Getty.
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