In a moving response during her Thursday appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Lady Gaga defended Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The singer-songwriter, who’s currently doing press for her feature film debut, A Star Is Born, was asked by Colbert what she generally thinks about the current political climate.
In the past Gaga has touched on her own experience as a survivor of sexual assault, and took the opportunity to immediately push back on President Trump’s mocking of Ford’s allegation at a rally earlier this week.
“It’s one of the most upsetting things I have ever witnessed,” Gaga told Colbert.
“Trump the other day was speaking in a rally and he said, ‘She has no memory of how she got to the party, you know; should we trust that she remembers the assault?’” Gaga said.
“And the answer is yes,” Gaga continued. “And I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly why, and I also know that this woman is smart, because she’s a psychologist; she’s no dummy.”
Gaga went into more detail about how survivors of sexual assault often experience lapses in memory, saying, “The brain changes, and literally what it does is it takes the trauma and it puts it in a box and it files it away and shuts it so that we can survive the pain.”
One of Ford’s key quotes from her testimony against Kavanaugh — “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter” — referred to how she couldn’t forget what she said was Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge’s demeanor while they assaulted her. Both men have denied the allegations.
Gaga went into more detail, explaining the physical and mental manifestations of assault.
“It also does a lot of other things: It can cause body pain; it can cause, you know, baseline elevations in anxiety,” she said. “It can cause complete avoidance of wanting to even remember or think about what happened to you.”
Gaga has long been a champion of sexual assault survivors’ causes, having campaigned with former vice president Joe Biden for the “It's on Us” initiative, which focused on highlighting and ending sexual assault on college campuses.
Back in 2016, she performed the song “Til it Happens to You” at the Academy Awards with more than 50 survivors of sexual assault onstage with her. The track was featured in the documentary The Hunting Ground and was nominated for Best Original Song, but lost to Sam Smith for “Writing’s on the Wall” from the Spectre soundtrack.
The singer ended her response to Colbert’s question by saying she believed Ford was triggered by Kavanaugh’s nomination, which opened “that box” where suppressed memories of her alleged attack were stored.
“And when that box opened, she was brave enough to share it with the world to protect this country,” Gaga said.
You can read Gaga’s full statement below:
You know, when it comes to the political stuff with you, I’m gonna say bring it on, because what I have seen on the news with this debate of Kavanaugh versus Dr. Ford, it’s one of the most upsetting things I have ever witnessed.
It’s heartbreaking, but I will tell you something, because I am a sexual assault survivor. And the truth is that Trump the other day was speaking in a rally and he said, “She has no memory of how she got to the party, you know; should we trust that she remembers the assault?"
And the answer is yes. And I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly why, and I also know that this woman is smart, because she’s a psychologist; she’s no dummy.
If someone is assaulted or experiences trauma, there is science and scientific proof — it’s biology — that people change. The brain changes and literally what it does is it takes the trauma and it puts it in a box and it files it away and shuts it so that we can survive the pain. It also does a lot of other things: It can cause body pain; it can cause, you know, baseline elevations in anxiety; it can cause complete avoidance of wanting to even remember or think about what happened to you.
But what I believe that I have seen is that when this woman saw that Judge Kavanaugh was going to be possibly put in the highest position of power in the judicial system of this country, she was triggered, and that box opened. And when that box opened, she was brave enough to share it with the world to protect this country.