You might have done a double take on Thursday morning (February 17) if you were having your morning coffee while watching "Good Morning America." Yes, that was Lady Gaga up bright and early, and yes, she did say she was wearing a "latex-condom-inspired outfit" as part of her bid to promote AIDS awareness.
Four days after her instantly legendary entrance at the Grammy Awards in an egg-shaped vessel, the singer donned a flesh-colored sheath dress with matching shoes and a sculptural off-white hat to talk with "GMA" host Robin Roberts.
"MAC has been fighting for identity and for passion and love and protection for so long," said Gaga of the MAC brand of cosmetics, which she said raised $34 million last year through its Viva Glam lipstick brand for HIV/AIDS-related causes, some of it courtesy of an ad campaign starring Gaga and singer Cyndi Lauper. The goal this year, said Gaga, again sporting the alien-inspired facial ridges that seem to be part of her latest persona, was to raise $50 million.
She then gave Roberts a sample of the taupe lipstick and lip glass that she designed for MAC, which gives 100 percent of Viva Glam proceeds to AIDS/HIV prevention.
"I want to get people started at home at a younger age with their children talking about HIV, talking about AIDS, talking about safe sex," she explained. "My mother talked to me about sex at a young age, and she always taught me to be self-aware — that's in my new song, 'Born This Way.' I say 'My momma told me when I was young ...' My first experience with my mother that I remember mostly was when she would put her lipstick on in the morning and she would talk to me about life."
The bottom line, self-described activist and social-justice fighter Gaga said, was to speak to the people in your life about safe sex in order to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Gaga also talked about her "genuine shock" at hearing her name called at the Grammys on Sunday night when she won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance award for "Bad Romance."
"I so genuinely did not think I was going to win," she said. "I really did, and I was so shocked and so honored and so humbled. And it was a very joyous day to sing 'Born This Way' for the first time."
Staying on message, Gaga then tied in the theme of the song with her MAC line, saying it is shame and stigma around the difficulty of talking to children about sex and AIDS that makes people not protect themselves.
" 'Born This Way' is about self love, and MAC AIDS Fund is about self love. ... It is so much bigger than me," she said. "It's not about me at all. The song, when I wrote it, I just knew it was destined to reach so many people all over the world. The most humbling this for me this past weekend is watching the fans harness onto the record and ... really enjoying the music and feeing uplifted and a sense of positivity."