Lady Gaga Strips Back the Glam for a Raw Performance of ‘Hold My Hand’ at 2023 Oscars

Lady Gaga made a special appearance at the Oscars, where she performed her powerful ballad “Hold My Hand” on Sunday.

“It’s deeply personal for me. We all need each other, we need a lot of love to walk through this life. We need heroes sometimes. There’s heroes all around us,” Gaga told the audience before slipping into the song. “You might find that you can be your own hero even if you feel broken inside.”

More from Rolling Stone

• No One's More Happy About Michelle Yeoh's Oscar Win Than Her Mom: 'She Has Made Malaysia Proud'

• How Jimmy Kimmel, 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' and a Donkey Saved the Oscars

• Michelle Yeoh Makes History With Best Actress Win at 2023 Oscars: 'This Is a Beacon of Hope'

Joined by a full backing band, the singer opted to ditch the glamour she arrived at the ceremony with and instead perform in jeans and a t-shirt sans makeup. When you pour your all into a performance like she did on the Oscars stage, begging for a promise with searing vocals and impassioned high notes, even the glitz would dull under that kind of shine.

The song, hailing from Top Gun: Maverick, is nominated for Best Original Song. “Hold My Hand” — which Lady Gaga wrote with BloodPop — is up against Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up;” Sofia Carson and Diane Warren’s “Applause;” M.M. Keeravani’s “Naatu Naatu;” and Ryan Lott, David Byrne, and Mitski’s “This Is a Life.”

This is Lady Gaga’s third nomination in the category. She was also nominated in 2019 for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Ally in A Star Is Born, and she won Best Original Song for “Shallow” from the film, alongside co-writers Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, and Anthony Rossomando. She was previously nominated in 2016 for co-writing “Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground.

The multihyphenate is returning to the big screen for her role as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, in Joker: Folie à Deux, where Lady Gaga will star opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s titular character. The film is slated to arrive on Oct. 4, 2024.

Best of Rolling Stone

• All 229 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked

• The Who's 50 Greatest Songs

• Fleetwood Mac's 50 Greatest Songs

Click here to read the full article.