Rebecca Black will never forget being “the butt of a joke” — or Lady Gaga coming to her defense.
The singer-songwriter was only a teenager when her debut single “Friday” was released in 2011 to viral and widespread mockery on social media, but she recalled a genuine vibe shift after her biggest idol at the time came to her defense.
“It was so special,” she told Mythical Kitchen in an interview Tuesday. “And it’s only meant more to me, I think, as I’ve kind of gone throughout my career and have tried to navigate this entire process. I mean, at the time, it was such a crazy experience to be a 13-year-old.”
“Friday,” a pop song about a teenager anticipating the end of her school week, was written and produced for Black by record label ARK Music Factory as a gift from her mother. But it was torched upon release for its basic lyrics and shoddily directed music video during the nascent days of YouTube and social media, which she said Tuesday “can be slightly crushing as a kid.”
The song unwittingly made Black a punching bag until Lady Gaga herself decried the backlash.
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Gaga about “Friday” at a Musicians@Google event at the time, per Billboard. “I say Rebecca Black is a genius and anyone that’s telling her she’s cheesy is full of shit.”
Black found yet another gracious defender in Katy Perry, who gave her a cameo months later in the music video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” Black said Tuesday she had been “stanning all of these queens” when they unexpectedly invited her into the fold.
“I was a huge Lady Gaga fan, I was a huge Katy Perry fan,” said Black during the interview, adding: “It was such a crazy experience to go from living in my bedroom … to all of a sudden them mentioning your name somewhere or just acknowledging that you exist.”
“It was just a bizarre one-two of like, ‘Wait, this person knows I exist? That doesn’t make sense,’ to immediately being the butt of a joke,” explained Black. “I just was so appreciative” of celebrities like Gaga and Perry coming to her defense, she said.
Black has since become a genuine singer-songwriter who authors her own work and released her debut studio album “Let Her Burn” in 2023.
She argued Tuesday that fandom itself has changed since the 2010s — and that Gaga and Perry led that charge themselves.
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“To me, not to say that any one artist is 100% responsible for their fans’ behavior, but you do kind of lead the way a little bit, of guiding the messaging,” said Black. “And I think ever since then, so many Gaga fans and Katy fans have always been just so kind to me.”