Chinese fans of Lady Gaga weren't happy after her meeting with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, which landed her on the list of hostile foreign forces that are banned by the Communist party of China.
The American pop singer met the Tibetan spiritual leader on Sunday before her conference in Indianapolis wherein they talked about how beneficial it is to be compassionate. A 19-minute video of the encounter was posted on Lady Gaga's Facebook page wherein they tackled about mental health, meditation and how to detoxify humanity.
Reports reveal that the Western celebrity has upset Beijing and thousands of internet users from China who flooded her Instagram account with angry comments when she posted photos of the meeting. Others also expressed their anger on Chinese social media site, Weibo.
"It's all over for Lady Gaga, a nation trumps an idol," one comment said on Weibo, which is China's equivalent of Twitter, CNN reported. Another user said that she used to like Lady Gaga so much but after the meeting, she is no longer a fan of the star who has sold more than 27 million albums.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei refused to comment about the reports that Beijing banned the star's music which is very popular in China. But he did noted that the international community is "well aware of what kind of person the Dalai Lama truly is" which is the reason why it received a strong reaction from the public.
The Communist party's mysterious propaganda department issued an important instruction to ban her entire repertoire from mainland China. With that, Chinese websites as well as media organizations were ordered to stop uploading or distributing her songs which is a sign of Beijing's irritation to the pop star's actions. In addition to that, party-controlled news outlets which includes state broadcaster CCTV and newspapers like the People's Daily and the Global Times were urged to condemn said meeting.
The Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate, was forced to exile in March 1959 when the Communist leadership of China despised him. They considered him as a separatist who tried to split Tibet from China, The Guardian reported.
Lady Gaga isn't the first star who was banned due to her meeting with the Dalai Lama. Other stars banned due to the same reason are Hollywood actor Richard Gere, Bjork, Bon Jovi and Maroon 5.