Vice President Joe Biden will rub shoulders with Hollywood's biggest stars when he introduces Lady Gaga at the Academy Awards on Sunday, according to ABC News.
Lady Gaga will perform her Oscar nominated song "Til It Happens to You" from the documentary "The Hunting Ground" about campus sexual assault. Biden has been a strong advocate for the White House campaign "It's On Us," which battles against sexual assault on American college campuses. He will attend the ceremony with his wife Dr. Jill Biden.
Biden has a long history to stop violence against women. As the senator from Delaware, he introduced the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to Congress in 1990. The act changed law enforcement practices, improved the criminal justice system and created a network of services for victims. It also established new federal crimes of interstate domestic violence and stalking, doubled penalties for repeat sex offenders, and brought about similar laws at the state level to protect victims.
Since its passage in 1994, rates of domestic violence have decreased by more than 50 percent.
Lady Gaga opened up about her own rape during a TimesTalk panel discussion in December. She was 19 years old at the time of the attack and didn't tell anyone about it until seven years later.
I didn't know how to think about it," she said. "I didn't know how to accept it. I didn't know how to not blame myself or think it was my fault. It's something that really changed my life. It changed who I was completely. It changed my body, it changed my thoughts."
The 88th Annual Academy Awards will air on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 8:30 p.m. on ABC.
