Watch Lady Gaga Rehearse Her 2023 Oscars ‘Hold My Hand’ Performance in Full Make-Up and Elegant Gown
Lady Gaga stunned the Oscars telecast on Sunday night with her stripped-down performance of the Top Gun: Maverick ballad “Hold My Hand,” during which she took the stage with no makeup, ripped black jeans and a t-shirt.
On Thursday (March 16) the singer presented a very different take on the surprise set when she posted a TikTok of a rehearsal in which she rocked her full glammed-out red carpet look while playing the song solo on piano in her hotel room. “The rehearsal no one saw,” she captioned the intimate 82-second clip, in which she glances at the song’s lyrics laid out atop the black baby grand piano while sporting bright red lipstick and a sheer black Versace gown.
“I wrote this song with my friend BloodPop for the film Top Gun: Maverick in my studio basement,” Gaga said during her Oscars performance. “It’s deeply personal for me, and I think that we all need each other. We need a lot of love to walk through this life, and we all need a hero sometimes. There’s heroes all around us, in unassuming places, but you might find that you can be your own hero even if you feel broken inside.”
“Hold My Hand” hit No. 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022 — one of two Hot 100 hits from Maverick, along with OneRepublic’s “I Ain’t Worried.” Lady Gaga previously won the Oscar for best original song at the 2019 Academy Awards, for her Hot 100-topping Bradley Cooper duet “Shallow” from A Star Is Born.
Check out Gaga’s stripped-down performance below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard