Lady Gaga Puts on Intimate Show at the Apollo as She Talks Oscars Win and Pride Month

Lady Gaga wore her heart on her sleeve during an emotional show at the Apollo Theater in New York City’s Harlem on Monday. The performance included a rundown of her greatest hits and a nod to both Pride Month and her recent Oscar win.

Before launching into her 2016 hit “Million Reasons,” Gaga honored the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and included a shoutout to one of the movement’s most prominent figures, Marsha P. Johnson.

“I personally think Pride should exist 365 [days] out of the year, but I’ll take a f⁠— global week,” she said. “All hail to so many, including Ms. Marsha P. Johnson. What bravery, what courage, in the spirit of acceptance, the spirit of tolerance, the spirit of courage to be seen as you see yourself.”

Gaga also thanked her fans for inspiring her to ask the question, “What is your pronoun?”

“For a lot of people, it’s really hard, and their pronoun’s not respected, or they’re not asked, and for me, I’ve grown and changed over the years in a lot of different ways,” she said. “I’ve felt misunderstood in different ways. All our hardships are different. I don’t mean to compare, I just mean to say we’re in this together and I’ve had a million reasons to want to give up, but sometimes, if you’re lucky, you just need one good reason to stick around.”

After tackling some of her biggest hits throughout the night, including “Just Dance,” “Bad Romance,” and “The Edge of Glory,” Gaga wrapped the show with a solo rendition of “Shallow,” from A Star Is Born.

The song, a duet with costar Bradley Cooper, won her an Oscar in February for Best Original Song, something she acknowledged on Monday.

“[Critics] tried to take me down, and I put my head back down and got back to work,” she said of releasing her first two albums. “Then I looked up one day and had a f⁠— Oscar, man. You can do anything that you put your mind to.”

Meanwhile, two of her Star Is Born costars, drag queens Shangela and William, were also in the house for the show.

“Everytime. EVERY. TIME. that I see @ladygaga perform it inspires me to push forward, continue Werqin, create more content that touches people, and forever cherish my fans,” Shangela wrote on Instagram alongside a video of Gaga singing “Shallow.” “Thank u LG for putting your heart into tonight’s intimate show in NYC at the Apollo Theatre. I had soooo much fun… and I have to pinch myself whenever u sing SHALLOW.”

The invite-only show was a scaled-down version of Gaga’s Enigma Las Vegas residency concert, and served as a homecoming of sorts for the 33-year-old New York native.

The capacity of the legendary Apollo is just 1,506 — a far cry from the 5,200 seats Gaga fills during her Vegas shows at the Park Theater.

The singer seemed to appreciate the trimmed-down audience, telling the crowd it was reminiscent of her early days in the business more than 10 years ago.

“It’s been over a decade since I was playing for crowds like this. I went from 30 people to 300 people to 1,500 people … to 150,000 people,” she said. “And that’s because of one thing: everybody believing [in me]. I’d be nothing without you and I.”

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