Last Sunday, pop icon Lady Gaga sat down with the Dalai Lama, and she’s landed in China’s hot seat because of it. Or, rather, she’s been forbidden from sitting in any of China’s seats, hot or otherwise, because yesterday morning the artist and her entire repertoire were banned from mainland China. For what it’s worth, the meeting between the two did result in a 19 minute-long video in which the two discussed education, mediation, mental health, safe spaces, and acts of kindness — so it wasn’t all for naught.
Like many artists before her, including Maroon 5, Oasis, and Bjork, Gaga was wary of the risk she was taking “against” Beijing in professing any sense of accordance with his Holiness the Dalai Lama, and rightfully so, apparently. The ban of her and her music was effective beginning Monday morning, according to the Hong Kong Paper, Apple Daily.
Such a stance against Gaga is attributed to the conspiracy that the Dalai Lama has, ever since his flee into exile in 1959, continuously promoted the separation of Tibet from China. Therefore any artist who expresses support for him becomes immediately banned. For what it’s worth, though, some of her songs were still available for download this morning — a day after the ban — via China’s QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music players.
This is not Gaga’s first rodeo with the Chinese government, as the superstar has been banned before, alongside Katy Perry for reasons surrounding their “vulgarity,” way back in 2011. Life sure was different back before Artpop.