Diane Warren, who won the Emmy for Best Original Music and Lyrics for her Lady Gaga anthem, “Til It Happens to You, ” said backstage she was dedicating her win to publicist Ronni Chasen, who was murdered in November of 2010 while driving home from the premiere of the film Burlesque.
The song, from the documentary The Hunting Ground. The docu is about campus rape in the United States and the song has been described as an anti-rape anthem. But Warren explained she wrote the song to speak to those facing other trauma as well.
The song won the Emmy after failing to snag a Grammy and an Oscar, meaning Warren already had won the distinction, heading into tonight’s competition, of being the first songwriter to be nominated for an Oscar, Grammy and Emmy in the same year for the same song. Lady Gaga’s performance of “Til It Happens to You” at the Oscars, where she was joined on stage by victims of sexual assault, was a highlight of the ceremony where the tune had been tipped to win the statuette but came up short in an upset.
“I get to say my Oscar speech,” Warren laughed while accepting her Emmy. She thanked Lady Gaga for “being brave enough to work on this with me, giving voice to those who are silent, who are afraid to speak,” and thought “no one would hear them. “You are not alone. We hear you.”
Warren’s win means Alan Menken has to wait to finally complete EGOT; the prolific composer has won eight Oscars, 11 Grammys and a Tony Award, but the Emmy had eluded him tonight for his nominated song from the canceled ABC musical comedy Galavant called “A New Season.”
