Lady Gaga Oscar Win For ‘Til It Happens To You’ Would Be Her First

Lady Gaga’s Til It Happens to You has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. Gaga has received multiple Grammy Awards, but a win tonight would be her first Academy Award. Gaga wrote the song with Diane Warren for use in the documentary film The Hunting Ground, which is about college campus rape. Check it out.

Gaga will perform the Oscar-nominated Til It Happens to You during tonight’s broadcast of the 88th Academy Awards. CNN announced on Thursday that Vice President Joe Biden will introduce Lady Gaga on the Oscar broadcast. The vice president will use his introduction of Gaga to call for greater awareness of sexual assault, an issue for which he has previously tried to raise awareness.

Gaga’s Oscar night performance is just one more highlight of what’s been a very busy and successful run for the singer and actress that began about a year and a half ago. In September, 2014, Columbia Records released Cheek to Cheek, an album featuring Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett singing jazz standards together that included songs like Anything Goes and Cheek to Cheek. The album received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Album.

The success of the album was followed by Lady Gaga’s Oscar show performance of a Sound of Music medley. Gaga then showed her acting abilities as she slayed it in her American Horror Story role as Elizabeth, a role that won her a Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. Then there was Lady Gaga’s national anthem at the recent Super Bowl 50 that wowed everyone, and her recent tribute to David Bowie during the Grammys broadcast.

Gaga’s Oscar-nominated Til It Happens to You is important for her on a very personal level. As reported by Deadline, Lady Gaga was raped at the age of 19. Speaking about her own experience and how important Diane Warren was in creating Til It Happens to You, Gaga said the following.

“Working on this with Diane has helped me relive all of this in a bad way at first. It’s healing, but it’s like a wound that has to crack and be messed up before it heals. I would never have done this without Diane. I would never be able to face it by myself and sing somebody else’s song. It had to be something that I believed in to my core.”

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Lady Gaga also spoke to Deadline about the Oscar nomination and the significance of Til It Happens to You.

“Everyone says ‘Oh, an Oscar nomination.’ It’s not about that for me at all. Of course, it’s cool. The Oscars nominated this issue by nominating this song. Now the issue has the media talking about it, hopefully in a way I believe it deserves to be talked about. We can reach more people. When an organization like The Academy that believes in talent says ‘We care about you.’ That means that message is not just sent to me and Diane, but to people that hear the song and who went through something like this.”

Gaga’s passion for the issues raised by her Oscar-nominated song is reflected in her comments about Kesha’s recent battle with Dr. Luke that has played out in the public eye. Lady Gaga posted these comments on Instagram.

“This is the most upsetting part for me. That the very reason women don’t speak up for years is the fear that no one will believe them or their abuser has threatened their life or life of their loved ones/livelihood in order to keep their victim quiet and under control. What happened to Kesha has happened to many female artists, including myself, and it will affect her for the rest of her life.”

Lady Gaga also performed Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me with Elton John at a surprise pre-Oscar concert yesterday.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]