Lady Gaga is back in the U.S. after wrapping work on House of Gucciin Rome, and she made her first big event appearance in Los Angeles yesterday. The singerwas honored in
West Hollywood for the 10th anniversary of her album Born This Way, with Mayor Lindsey P. Horvath and Gaga making May 23 Born This Way day. Gaga also got a key to the city.
How did Gaga dress for the celebration? Like a pop star. Gaga wore her own merch—a graphic Born This Way t-shirt from her Urban Outfitters collection—with Demonia platform boots and torn fishnets.
Gaga reflected on her Instagram about the occasion, writing about Carl Bean, the activist who inspired the album. “Born This Way, my song and album, were inspired by Carl Bean, a gay black religious activist who preached, sung and wrote about being ‘Born This Way,’” she captioned her post featuring an image from the Los Angeles event. “Notably his early work was in 1975, 11 years before I was born. Thank you for decades of relentless love, bravery, and a reason to sing. So we can all feel joy, because we deserve joy. Because we deserve the right to inspire tolerance, acceptance, and freedom for all.”
In Gaga's December 2019 ELLE interview, the singer reflected to Oprah on how her fans inspired her to make kindness the center of her platform. Oprah had asked Gaga when she felt most able to express kindness heals all things.
“I think it really started with my relationship with my fans,” Gaga said. “Looking out into the audience and seeing so many people who were like me, people who felt different, who didn’t feel seen or understood. And then also seeing a lot of kids who felt afraid to be open about who they were, it became sort of an existential experience for me, where I thought about what it means to be an individual—I wanted to fight for those individuals. I actually said this the other day on social media. I said, ‘I didn’t do this for fame, I did it for impact.’ And that’s the truth. I recognized very early on that my impact was to help liberate people through kindness. I mean, I think it’s the most powerful thing in the world, particularly in the space of mental illness.”