PARIS, Sept 26 — Lady Gaga comes face to face with the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and plants a lipstick smile on her face in a new video clip released yesterday by the singer and the French museum. The American diva who stars in the new Joker movie, channelled her Harley Quinn character to do a little bit of lipstick “vandalism” to Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece to promote the Louvre's new exhibition, Figures of the Fool , which like the movie, opens next month. Lady Gaga creeps through the Paris museum at night in a red wig singing a song composed specially for the video, which was released on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) She ends up nose-to-nose with the Mona Lisa before painting a clownish smile in lipstick on the protective glass in front of it. As she stands back, a black mascara tear drops from the star's eye. Asked about the wisdom of encouraging such gestures at a time when paintings are regularly being attacked in museums by climate activists, the Louvre insisted the video was “purely fictional”, and was a homage to Leonardo, who was obsessed by the smile.
The museum insisted that an additional screen had been put up for the video in front of the 3.8-centimetre-thick (1.5-inch) bulletproof one that protects the canvas.
Source of inspiration The lipstick smile is an echo of a key scene in The Joker: Folie a Deux , when Harley Quinn visits The Joker, her criminal soulmate, in jail. The Louvre said they worked with Wa.
