Arts & Entertainment

Lady Gaga and Madonna visit LGBT homeless center over Thanksgiving

celebrities give back during holiday season

Published

10 years ago

November 28, 2016

I spent a beautiful morning w/ ?️‍? youth @AliForneyCenter the largest drop-in center in the ?. I brought ?& led them in a group meditation pic.twitter.com/ZinvWkcKqJ

— xoxo, Joanne (@ladygaga) November 26, 2016

Lady Gaga and Madonna took time from their Thanksgiving holiday to visit the LGBT homeless youth at Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn and documented their visits on social media.

Madonna dropped by the center on Thanksgiving day and posed for a photo with a few of the youth.

“This center protects LGBT Youth from the harms of homelessness and empowers them to reclaim their lives,” Madonna captioned the photo. “Each year the Ali Forney Center provides care for over 1,200 youth who are rejected by their family due to their LGBT identity.”

“AFC provides these youth with tools they need to become independent and more importantly, AFC provides these youth with the love and support they are denied by their families. Because everyone deserves to be loved and everyone deserves a home,” the caption continued.

Had so much fun sharing Thanksgiving at the Ali Forney Center in Brooklyn! This center protects LGBT Youth from the harms of homelessness and empowers them to reclaim their lives. Each year the Ali Forney Center provides care for over 1,200 youth who are rejected by their family due to their LGBT identity. AFC provides these youth with tools they need to become independent and more importantly, AFC provides these youth with the love and support they are denied by their families. Because everyone deserves to be loved and everyone deserves a home. ????!!!

A photo posted by Madonna (@madonna) on Nov 25, 2016 at 11:57am PST

Lady Gaga stopped by the center on Black Friday to lead a meditation circle as well as to give an acoustic performance of her latest single “Million Reasons.”

“I’m here today not because I had to excruciatingly pull time out of my schedule to come be here. I’m here because I want to be here,” Lady Gaga said of her visit according to iHeartRadio. “And I’m here because I want this to affect other people around the world, and to remind them that when they are kind, it not only makes the other person feel good, but it makes me feel good too.”

Watch Lady Gaga’s performance below.

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Online Culture

Clavicular charged in alleged rape of teenage influencer

Online personality’s real name is Braden Peters

Published

8 hours ago

September 23, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

Braden Peters a.k.a. "Clavicular" (Screen capture via NBC News/YouTube)

Online personality Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, has been accused of rape.

According to NBC, Aleksandra Vasilevna Mendoza, an 18-year-old influencer known online as Alorah or Alorah Ziva, accused Peters of sexual assault, and the case is making its way through the court system.

The alleged incident occurred on May 23, 2025, when Mendoza was 17.

According to a criminal complaint from the Chatham (Mass.) Police Department, Peters called her an Uber to his family’s home. Once there, he allegedly got her drunk on vodka while they livestreamed on Twitch and then raped her. His mother and grandmother were allegedly in the house.

The documents allege Clavicular committed rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and procuring and providing liquor to a person under 21.

According to court documents acquired by NPR, Mendoza began communicating with Peters on Instagram, where he paid her to appear on his livestreams to help her “make her name known on social media.”

According to those documents, Peters arranged for the minor to come to Cape Cod home to participate in a videostream for his 437,000 followers on Kick, 1.2 million followers on TikTok, and more than 1 million followers on Instagram.

At his home, Peters allegedly instructed Mendoza to say she was 18 on his videostream and to claim the alcohol on camera was water instead of vodka. Mendoza said she felt peer-pressured to drink the spirit and that she became noticeably intoxicated after a couple of drinks.

The allegations go on to state that after stopping the stream, Peters and Mendoza kissed on a couch and then had sex in his bed without her consent. Mendoza said she did not receive a sexual assault forensic exam after the incident. NPR does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

The charges come months after Mendoza sued Peters in Miami, accusing him of sexual battery in connection with the events of May 2025. The civil lawsuit also separately alleges that he injected her face with a non-FDA-approved fat-dissolving substance during a November livestream in Florida.

Peters is known for his “looksmaxxing” concept of vanity, which is at the core of his online presence. The “looksmaxxing” culture he has helped cultivate combines elements of incel culture and heterosexuality, with the stated goal of attracting the opposite sex. He has gone as far as to say he has undergone “bonesmashing,” or hitting his own face with a hammer; taken anabolic steroids to more rapidly grow muscle; and used crystal meth as an appetite suppressant.

At the same time, looksmaxxing has been described as having elements of homoeroticism, with “looksmaxxers” appearing more concerned with impressing other men than women. Peters has multiple times pointed to openly gay actor Matt Bomer as the gold standard for male facial aesthetics.

Peters’s arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 14.