Finally holding her head high. Lady Gaga had never revealed her personal rape story to some members of her family because she’d been too ashamed.
But after her high-profile and hugely emotional performance at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday, February 28, her entire family now knows what she went through in the past, and the 29-year-old singer is on top of the world.
During the Oscars ceremony, Gaga performed her and Diane Warren‘s Oscar-nominated song “Til It Happens to You,” which was written for the documentary The Hunting Ground, about campus rape.
And the Grammy-winning singer was accompanied on stage by 50 women and men (some of whom were featured in the film) who had survived past sexual abuse, many with words such as “Not Your Fault” and “Unbreakable” written on their arms.
Sharing a photograph of herself with her grandmother and her aunt on Tuesday, March 1, Gaga revealed how her family members had reacted to the performance.
“My grandmother (in the middle) and my Aunt Sheri (on the right) both called me the day after the Oscars because I never told them I was a survivor. I was too ashamed,” she wrote. “Too afraid. And it took me a long time to even admit it to myself because I’m Catholic and I knew it was evil but I thought it was my fault. I thought it was my fault for ten years.”
“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. #BeBrave #speakup #tilithappenstoyou.”
