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P!nk was among the people watching at home on Sunday night helping to lift the 78th annual Tony Awards to their biggest broadcast audience since 2019. But the pop superstar seemed more keyed in on the action in her own living room than the best and brightest Broadway stars dancing and belting across the Radio City Music Hall stage.
That’s because her daughter and sometime musical companion Willow had cooked up her own homebrew tribute to the Great White Way. According to E! News, In a since-expired video on her Instagram Story on Monday, P!nk gushed about the teen hopping up on the coffee table in the family living room to sing her take on the Tony-nominated Boop! musical’s “Where I Wanna Be.”
Commenting on the impromptu performance, P!nk wrote, “I like when she sings at me.”
In an accompanying Instagram post, P!nk shared snaps of Willow watching the broadcast with rapt attention, standing on the coffee table in their living room in a costume of her own design. “This girl is where she wants to be,” the singer wrote of her 14-year-old first born. “Dressed up in her Great Gatsby the Musical costume (which she designed herself) watching the Tony’s!”
It’s not the first time P!nk has commented on Willow’s love of musical theater. In October, she shared a video of the teen losing it after getting to do some choreo with the cast of The Great Gatsby musical. “I am happy as long as my kids are being their authentic selves, and they’re not a–holes,” she wrote. “I am happy as long as there is a light in their eyes. I am under no illusion that any of this is easy. Parenting, being a kid, being on this earth, any of it. As long as we are doing ‘almost our best’, and allowing others to be their true selves- then I think we’re nailing it. But having a theater kid? Ultimate dream slash best case scenario. And being able to take her and expose her to this artform that lives? Great Gatsby? Jeremy Jordan? She is obsessed.”
When Lady Gaga steps onto the stage at The O2, towering above the crowd on the wide skirt of a deep red crinoline dress, it’s immediately obvious that this won’t be an ordinary Tuesday night. Known for never holding anything back, the theatrical pop visionary dives straight into world-building, transforming the arena into a surreal, camp horror setting. She faces off against another version of herself, surrounded at different moments by skeletons, witches and plague doctors.
“I must sing and build the walls to cradle my own space, and my own sound will grow the fortress of a home erased,” the two Gagas declare in unison before the grand entrance. What follows feels like a powerful reflection on the refuge and sense of belonging she has carved out with her music since her breakout moment with ‘Just Dance’ in 2008.
Aside from her newest release ‘Mayhem’, it’s the songs from her early records ‘The Fame’ (and its reissue ‘The Fame Monster’) and ‘Born This Way’ that take center stage. Although Gaga has reinvented herself many times over the years, it was those early projects and eras that built the groundwork for her artistic journey and gave her the freedom to experiment however she wished.
Lady Gaga credit: Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation
Her imagination and creative drive are fully on display tonight. One moment she’s sinking into the folds of her massive skirt, bursting out from a cage as ‘Abracadabra’ echoes around the venue. The next, she’s locked in a fierce duel with her chessboard “white queen” double during a striking performance of ‘Poker Face’. When she sings ‘Perfect Celebrity’, she moves into a sandpit, using it to show the complicated push and pull between love and resentment, gently holding and then violently gripping the skeleton lying beside her.
A breathtaking rendition of ‘Paparazzi’ keeps that feeling alive, as Gaga stumbles down the runway dressed in a white lace look partially covered with metal plates and crutches, like a knight stripped of its armor. The night is filled with imagery and layers of meaning, but she never loses sight of making it pure entertainment.
She also uses the moment to acknowledge the people who have supported her along the way. A triumphant ‘Born This Way’ becomes a tribute to the queer community. Gaga speaks from the heart, saying they have “inspired me for my whole career” and tells them, “You are so precious to me and to the world.” Sitting at the piano during the acoustic segment, she is clearly touched by the audience’s overwhelming love and takes a quiet moment to express her emotions.
Lady Gaga credit: Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation
“I feel very, very lucky to be here tonight,” she says, looking back at the first time she performed in the UK twenty years earlier. “I feel so humbled that, almost 20 years later, I’m still here.” After emotional versions of ‘Dance In The Dark’ and ‘The Edge Of Glory’, she asks the crowd, “If I come back 20 years from now – I’ll come back sooner – but will you come and see the show?”
There’s hardly a soul in the room who wouldn’t say yes, especially after a night this imaginative and flawlessly executed. Returning to full theatrical energy, Gaga leans into the absurd for ‘Bad Romance’, telling the crowd to “put your paws up” and showing off her hands with ridiculously long, sausage-like fingers, as if she’s stepped into a gothic version of a scene from Everything Everywhere All At Once.
As flames appear on top of the opera house behind her, she walks offstage and reemerges for the encore without makeup, wearing a plain black outfit and a beanie over the hair hidden beneath countless wigs throughout the show. It’s a quiet nod to the person behind all the spectacle, but still part of the performance. Like everything she’s done tonight, it’s executed with complete precision and heart.
