Born and raised in Malibu, California, Shannon McKee, 27, is accustomed to seeing celebs out and about. So when she saw Lady Gaga at her local market, she wasn’t too starstruck… at first.
“I walked in and I was like, ‘Hey, that’s a really bad a– jacket you got on,” McKee said. “And she said, ‘Thank you.’ I kind of recognized the voice, but I’m not one to really go up to celebrities.”
McKee initially left it at that and went back to her truck. But that’s when she realized she wanted to say something more so she went back in.
“I did have a story that I wanted to share with her, and I felt this need that she needed to hear it from me,” McKee, a ranch hand and nanny, explained. “And so when I went back, I was like, ‘Hey, you’re Lady Gaga, right?'”
“My best friend back in high school was a huge fan of yours. And you’re the reason he actually came out to me. And his first five tattoos are all dedicated to you and my brother just recently came out to me, too,” she told Gaga. “So I just wanted to say thank you for being such an incredible ally.”
Gaga gushed in response to her anecdote, telling McKee to tell her friend that she loves him. Out with her boyfriend Michael Polansky, Gaga said she didn’t feel comfortable posing for a pic close to her home. So that’s why she made sure to give McKee another keepsake of their meeting instead.
McKee explained, “As I was telling her the story about my friend, she took off her jacket and was like, ‘You loved my jacket so much. Here. It’s yours. Put it on right now. You be bad a– with it now.'”
And while McKee didn’t snap a photo of the close encounter, a paparazzo did.
In a video titled “Most loving woman I have ever met” shared to her Instagram, McKee talked about the interaction, explaining that she had been having a few horrible hours before the special moment.
“I couldn’t have been more thankful to have met someone as sweet and caring and compassionate and just an overall beautiful person as her,” she said. “I wanted to cry because it was so heartfelt in that moment. I have been a fan of hers since I was in high school. Timing is everything. I truly believe in this moment of time… it needed to happen.” ♦
