Lady Gaga's latest song and music video is a PSA that's graphic, emotional and hard to watch but sends a powerful message...and hits close to home for the singer.
In the 29-year-old pop star's clip for the ballad "Til It Happens to You" appears in black and white and contains graphic scenes of sexual harassment and assault. It features men and women, including actress Nikki Reed, at campus dorms and college parties. Lady Gaga, a rape survivor, does not star in the video, which was filmed to accompany the campus rape documentary The Hunting Ground.
Lady Gaga co-wrote the song, one of her most soulful ballads, with Diane Warren. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed Reed in Twilight and Thirteen, directed the music video. Part of the proceeds from the track's sales will be donated to organizations helping survivors of sexual assault.
"We hope u feel our love & solidarity through the song & perhaps find some peace in knowing u r not alone through this film #TilItHappensToYou,"Lady Gaga tweeted on Thursday.
"I hope that this PSA, with its raw and truthful portrayals, will send a clear message that we need to support these courageous survivors and end this epidemic plaguing our college campuses," Hardwicke said in a statement to Deadline.
In 2014, Lady Gaga revealed on The Howard Stern show on Sirius XM radio that she was raped by an older man when she was 19. The tragedy inspired her to write her song "Swine," which is featured on her 2013 album Artpop.
"It happens every day and it's really scary and it's sad. It didn't affect me as much right after as it did about four or five years later," the singer, who has since found love with fiancé and actor Taylor Kinney, said about her past sexual assault. "It hit me so hard. I was so traumatized by it that I was like, 'Just keep going,' 'cause I just had to get out of there...I wasn't even willing to admit that anything had even happened."
"I'll be damned if somebody's going to say that every creatively intelligent thing that I ever did has all boiled down to one dickhead, one dickhead that did that to me," she added. "I'm going to take responsibility for all my pain, looking beautiful and all the things that I've made out of my strife. I did that."