Lady Gaga Slams ICE, Expresses Solidarity With Minnesota During Tokyo Concert: “My Heart Is Aching”

Lady Gaga used her Mayhem Ball tour last night to speak out against the mayhem in Minnesota, pausing during her concert in Tokyo to decry the ICE crackdown on immigrants and families being “mercilessly targeted.”

“I want to take a second to talk about something that’s extremely important to me,” Gaga said from the stage of the Tokyo Dome. “Something important to people all over the world and especially in America right now. In a couple of days, I’m gonna be heading home and my heart is aching thinking about the people, the children, the families, all over America, who are being mercilessly targeted by ICE. I’m thinking about all of their pain and how their lives are being destroyed right in front of us.”

See video of her statement below. Gaga concludes her run of Tokyo shows Friday, January 30.

“I’m also thinking about Minnesota and everyone back at home who is living in so much fear and searching for answers on what we all should do,” she continued. “When entire communities lose their sense of safety and belonging, it breaks something in all of us. I hope that you’ll all stand with us tonight. I know we’re not in America right now, but we are with our community and we love you.”

Gaga then dedicated a song to “everyone who is suffering, to everyone who’s feeling alone and helpless, anyone who’s lost a loved one and is having a difficult time, an impossible time, seeing when the end will be near. We need to get back to a place of safety and peace and accountability. Good people shouldn’t have to fight so hard and risk their lives for well-being and respect and I hope, I hope our leaders are listening. I hope you’re listening to us ask you to change your course of action swiftly and have mercy on everyone in our country. At a time where it doesn’t feel like it’s easy to have hope, it is my community and my friends, my family that hold me up. So, I would like to sing a song that does have some hope in it, to try to give us a little bit tonight.”

Gaga is among the most nominated artists for the upcoming Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 1, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. She’s up for seven awards for her album Mayhem.