Lady Gaga Gets Matching Tattoos With Sexual Assault Survivors
Lady Gaga has a new tattoo, and the significance behind it is a special one. On Thursday, Gaga, 29, got matching tattoos with the sexual assault survivors who joined her on the Oscars stage during the singer's powerful performanceof "Til It Happens to You," the Oscar-nominated ballad written for The Hunting Ground, a documentary highlighting the campus rape epidemic. Mother Monster, who was raped when she was 19, shared the new body art as well as the entire tattoo process on Snapchat, during which she stated, "At rehearsal the survivors and I made a pact.", Tattoo artist David Allen was the one behind Gaga's latest ink. Allen captioned a photo of the pair on Instagram writing, "Honored to tattoo a symbol of unity' on @ladygaga today. An image of solidarity for survivors of sexual assault.", While Gaga got her tattoo completed at Pioneer Tattoo in Chicago, many of the survivors shared their finished body art on Twitter and Instagram. At the 88th Academy Awards, Gaga was joined onstage by 50 sexual assault survivors. Leading up to the live broadcast, the six-time Grammy winner spent hours in rehearsals getting to know the men and women who would go on to share the stage with her. "She spent a great deal of time with the survivors throughout the rehearsal process, and they formed a unique and meaningful bond," Amy Ziering, a producer on The Hunting Ground, told PEOPLE. "Many of them told me that speaking with her and hearing her share her story and what she'd learned was healing and life-changing.", The pop star also shared the experience on Instagram writing, "They told me they were there for me to support me because they believed this message needed to be heard. Without them I never could have felt strong. They accepted me for me, at my lowest and that was good enough for them, so somehow through the magic of their courage they made it good enough for me too.", Annie E. Clark, the executive director of End Rape on Campus, explained to PEOPLE that planning and executing the performance was "very emotional.", "Most of these people had not come out as survivors yet," Clark said, adding, "Some people had told a few close friends, maybe family, but had never done intense media, and weren't in the film. It was really awesome because there was such of a mix of experiences of people.", , , , Also on Thursday, Gaga raised awareness for sexual assault by tweeting images of poignant phrases along with the hashtags FreeEveryWoman and FreeKesha.