Lady Gaga's emotional, personal Oscars performance of her The Hunting Ground track "Til It Happens to You" resonated with sexual assault survivors around the world. And though Gaga was clearly connected to the 50 men and women on stage, her performance was a coming out not just for them but for the pop star too. In a new Instagram post, Gaga revealed that some of her family members found out about her rape because of the performance.
Gaga shared a photo of her grandmother and aunt on Instagram, and revealed that her Catholic upbringing had made her too scared to tell them about getting raped before the Oscars.
"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. 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," Gaga wrote.
And though the 29-year-old singer feared her family's reaction, they could not have been more proud of her in the end.
"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."
Though Gaga ended up losing the Oscar to Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall," she has clearly made an impact anyway.
