Lady Gaga Plants Lipstick Smile on Mona Lisa in Provocative Video

Lady Gaga has sparked controversy by planting a lipstick smile on the Mona Lisa in a new video clip released by the French museum, the Louvre. The singer, who stars in the upcoming movie "Joker: Folie a Deux", channelled her Harley Quinn character to create the provocative video, which was released on her social media handles.

In the clip, Lady Gaga is seen creeping through the Paris museum at night, dressed in a red wig, singing a song composed specifically for the video. She eventually comes face to face with the Mona Lisa and paints a clownish smile on the protective glass in front of the masterpiece. As she stands back, a black mascara tear drops from her eye.

The Louvre has defended the video, stating that it was "purely fictional" and a homage to Leonardo da Vinci, who was obsessed with the smile. The museum also assured that an additional screen had been put up for the video in front of the 3.8-centimetre-thick (1.5-inch) bulletproof one that protects the canvas.

The lipstick smile is an echo of a key scene in "The Joker: Folie a Deux", where Harley Quinn visits the Joker, her criminal soulmate, in jail. The Louvre worked with Warner Bros Pictures, the Hollywood studio behind the movie, to shoot the video in the museum.

This is not the first time the Louvre has been used as a backdrop for a celebrity’s creative project. Rapper and producer Will.i.am famously put himself into some of the museum’s best-known paintings for his 2016 animated video for "Mona Lisa Smile". Beyonce and Jay-Z also filmed their clip "Apeshit" using Gericault’s iconic "The Raft of the Medusa", the "Mona Lisa", and the coronation of Napoleon to make pointed comments about black people’s place in classical art history. More recently, the Louvre created a buzz with its images of a private visit given to singer Celine Dion before she sang at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in July.