Lady Gaga has raised $35 million to help fight coronavirus
The star also announced a one-off benefit concert featuring Billie Eilish, Elton John, Lizzo and others
By Tim Heap
Hot off revealing her new Chromatica album cover, Lady Gaga dialled into a World Health Organization (WHO) press conference yesterday (6 April).
Serving executive realness, the pop icon said she’s helped to raised $35m (£28m) for charity Global Citizen in the last week, with the money raised being used to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic – which has so far claimed over 75,000 lives, with close to 1.4m cases worldwide at the time of writing.
Posting to Instagram, Gaga said: “It has been an honor to partner with Global Citizen over the past several weeks as we’ve been working together behind the scenes to raise money for the WHO’s COVID19 Solidarity Response Fund.
“[Seven] days ago we held a call with more than 68 corporate leaders from some of the world’s largest companies. I asked them to join my Corporate Kindness list, and in just a week, we have raised $35 million.
“This money will go towards essential PPE [personal protective equipment] supplies and testing kits around the world and will help improve lab capacity to rapidly process tests.”
Gaga, who recently delayed the release of her sixth album because of the health crisis, also encouraged people to support local charities and initiatives, and announced that she will be curating a special one-off benefit concert, in collaboration with Global Citizen and in support of WHO’s COVID-19 solidarity response fund.
One World: Together at Home will be a multi-hour concert will celebrate health workers around the world, with guests including Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Elton John, Kacey Musgraves, Stevie Wonder, Alanis Morissette, Chris Martin and many more.
The event will be hosted by US talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, and will be streamed online at 8pm EST on 18 April.
BBC One will show an adapted version the following day, featuring exclusive UK performances and shining a spotlight on frontline NHS workers in interview segments.
Since the pandemic began, Global Citizen have been working with artists and performers for their Together at Home series of concerts, which have included stars such as Shawn Mendes, John Legend and Rufus Wainwright sharing performances from isolation.
On Instagram, Gaga said that the One World: Together at Home concert “is not a fundraiser”.
She added: “We will raise the money before we go on air, so when we do go live, put your wallets away and sit back and enjoy the show that you all very much deserve. I love you all.”
To find out more about the concert, including how you can stream it from home, click here.