On Thursday’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert was clearly impressed with his first guest, singer and now movie star in the making Lady Gaga. Colbert, who’s seen a preview of Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-starring A Star Is Born, was actually more like awestruck by the first-time lead actress’ performance and the film itself, telling his guest, “I rarely leave the theater more moved and inspired.” He also broke out his secret studio bar to offer Gaga some wine after the two started talking politics, once the pair commiserated over the current political situation, sharing that “wine and crying” was their preferred method of decompressing from a day of Trumpian outrages.
Colbert, noting that Gaga has been a vocal activist for women and the LGBTQ community throughout her career, asked his guest if she minded getting political at one point. “You know, when it comes to the political stuff with you, I say
bring it on,” said Gaga of her outspoken host, before rising to a defense of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, one of the women accusing Republicans’ Supreme Court favorite Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. “It was heartbreaking,” Gaga told Colbert, before hushing the Late Night crowd with her revelation that she herself is a survivor of secual assault.
Taking on the fact that Donald Trump mocked Dr. Ford to a jeering crowd of red-hatted minions at one of his recent rallies, Lady Gaga explained how, as a survivor, she understands how Dr. Ford’s memories of her experience are so vivid. Speaking of the science behind memory of traumatic events, she noted how the brain “takes the trauma and puts in in a box and it files it
away and shuts it so that we can survive the pain.” Extolling the courage of Ford in coming forward, despite knowing that powerful old men would disregard her pain for their own political ends, Gaga speculated that it was the sight of Kavanaugh about to be elevated to the highest court in the land that spurred Ford to act. “She was triggered and that box opened,” said Gaga, “And she was brave
enough to share it with the world to protect this country.” After a clearly moved Colbert closed with a quietly heartfelt “Thank you for being here” on the eve of the first vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, the pair raised their glasses in, one assumes, something like hope that that doesn’t happen.