It seemed almost inevitable that someone would vomit on Lady Gaga eventually, the only shocking part about was that she orchestrated the projectile herself. Gaga enlisted vomit painter Millie Brown to spew up some art for her performance ‘Swine’ at South By South West.
Brown drank down a bottle of bright green liquid, before hurling it back up on Gaga, who was manning a drum kit at the time. The two – both covered in spew – then embraced. Later on, Gaga told the audience: “I love my fans because they always let me be myself and they don’t care what anybody says… It’s so much easier to be yourself than it is to be somebody else.”
Mother Monster’s decision to blend finger-down-the-throat action with self-affirmation didn’t sit right with American Idol judge and former eating disorder sufferer Demi Lovato, who accused Gags of glamourising eating disorders in a series of tweets.
Sad… As if we didn’t have enough people glamorizing eat disorders already.
Would you let someone bring a needle and shoot up on you? Addiction is addiction.
— demetria lovato (@ddlovato) March 14, 2014
Top Comments
Performance artists have been doing this kind of thing at least since the 60's - Karen Finlay, G G Allin...I'm kind of stunned that people think it's totally outrageous. It would be nice if life came with trigger warnings, but it doesn't, and it's at least partly up to us as survivors to not engage, to not look for triggers in everything. Yes of course they're there - but part of survival is learning to deal with them.
@pavement_frippery:disqus, thanks for that input. I canvassed a couple of ED survivors before I wrote the piece, and they told me they found her "Pop stars don't eat" statement far more problematic than this, which was so OTT it didn't really mean anything to them. However, I've also reached out to a counsellor from The Butterfly Foundation for comment, and will update the post when they get back to me. By the way, it's great to be back on a platform where you comment, I've missed you!
And I've missed reading your writing (I'm too poor for fashion mags. Huzzah for the internet!).