A peace prize awarded to Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - that is, Lady Gaga - by artist and activist, Yoko Ono, is to be donated to Elton John's AIDS charity.
Peace prize to Lady Gaga:Lady Gaga donates peace prize to AIDS charity.
Date: October 10 2012
"I will be donating this grant to the Elton John Aids Foundation and I will be working closely with them to ensure that the money goes specifically to those orphaned and disadvantaged youth in America born with HIV or AIDS," she said in her acceptance speech at a ceremony in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The LennonOno Grant For Peace is a biennial award handed out by Yoko Ono, the widow of former Beatles star John Lennon.
Ono told AFP that she wanted to honour Gaga for her work campaigning for gay rights.
Gaga is "powerful" and "it's great that she is using her power to do other things than just singing", she said.
Lady Gaga, who also recently visited Australian Julian Assange in exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, shared this year's prize with Russian punk band Pussy Riot, the late writer Christopher Hitchens, Rachel Corrie, an activist who was killed when protesting in Gaza, and author John Perkins.
The award was established in 2002 in memory of John Lennon's activism and is given out every two years to people working for peace. The size of the award has never been disclosed.
|