Lady Gaga hasn’t exactly been secret about her feelings on president-elect Donald Trump. She openly advocated for Hillary Clinton and was outside Trump’s Manhattan tower protesting him as soon as the election results were clear. But she’s made her ideas on Trump’s America that much more clear in a new essay for Harper’s Bazaar.
Mother Monster began the essay by talking about her late aunt Joanne — the woman for who she named her most recent album — and her untimely death at the age of 19.
“Joanne died of lupus, which is an autoimmune disease, and from what I know of the history of my family, one of the reasons her disease may have worsened was that she was assaulted when she was in college. She was sexually assaulted and groped,” she said.
When she saw Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women, her thoughts went back to her aunt. Although, she also took a moment to explain to America why these women had waited to come forward.
“I thought about Joanne as I was watching the news during the election about the scandal surrounding the Access Hollywood tape,” she wrote. “Here we were, in 2016, and the fact that the sort of language that was being used to talk about women was everywhere — on TV, in politics — was eye-opening. I felt depressed and hurt by it because that’s what that kind of language does.”
Gaga knew that she wasn’t alone in her feelings when she saw First Lady Michelle Obama speak about them.
“She talked about how women are often afraid to say anything because we’re worried that we will appear weak — that we’ll be told we’re being over-the-top, dramatic, emotional,” she wrote. “But we’re not. We’re fighting for our lives.”
For those of you who feel inspired by Gaga’s words and want to do something, be sure to check out our own Steve Bramucci’s breakdown of what every American can do in the wake of Trump’s election.
