On Sunday at The Oscars, Lady Gaga performed her song “Til It Happens to You” from the 2015 documentary, The Hunting Ground. The Hunting Ground is a sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. Gaga’s performance vocally was beautiful, but the most beautiful thing about it was all of the sexual assault survivors she incorporated (including herself).
50 survivors of sexual assault, male and female, joined Gaga onstage. They all had something empowering written on their forearm like “not my fault,” “survivor,” and “it’s on us.” The song itself was emotional because of the subject it was about, but when all of the survivors came forward and stood together with Lady Gaga it became so much more powerful. It was amazing to see all of these survivors refuse to let what happen to them define them and control their lives. Standing together and showing the world that they are not ashamed of what happened to them was extremely inspiring to anyone who has been sexually assaulted.
There were even celebrities so moved by Gaga’s performance that they opened up about their own sexual assault stories. Jade Tolbert, a former “The Bachelor” contestant, wrote an essay about sexual assault she experienced when she was in high school. She wrote that this story was “trapped inside” of her for 12 years and it was this performance that compelled her to share her experience. Actress Jaime King also tweeted Lady Gaga thanking her for her performance, and mentioned that she also experienced sexual assault as a young girl.
There’s usually a stigma associated with being a victim of sexual assault and Lady Gaga’s performance will allow others who have also been victims to realize that they are not at fault and should not be ashamed. Lady Gaga herself is a survivor of sexual assault. Her performance and outspokenness about the issue is amazing and is doing wonders for people who are victims.
Kesha also thanked Lady Gaga for her performance at The Oscars.
After a judge refused to let Kesha nullify her contract with Sony, which would force her to work with Dr. Luke again, almost everyone began to flood social media with support for Kesha. Lady Gaga was always one of Kesha’s biggest supporters and this performance came at a wonderful time. Hopefully Gaga’s performance has furthered the movement to abolish the stigma of sexual assault and raise more awareness about this very real issue that can happen to anyone.