Indya Moore Shares How Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation Saved Them

This past Saturday, Dom Pérignon hosted a dinner for Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation and donated $570,000 to the charitable organization.  

Founded in 2011, the organization is "committed to supporting the wellness of young people, and empowering them to create a kinder and braver world." Mother Monster's mother, Cynthia Germanotta, was in attendance for the beautiful night, as well as stars Amanda Seyfried, Billy Porter, Evan Mock, Tommy Dorfman, Antoni Porowski, and Indya Moore. The latter thanked the foundation for personally helping them when they were younger in a moving speech.

Moore, the trans and nonbinary actor most known for their appearance on FX's Emmy-winning series Pose, shared that they were struggling financially before appearing on the show. 

"Before I started working on Pose, not too long before it, I was homeless," they told the audience according to Page Six. "I was dealing with a lot in my personal life that I never actually got to address. I just went straight into working and being an artist and everything that I am to people, and so now I’m trying to be something more for myself. And that’s what I’ve been focused on."

Along with all the good the Born This Way Foundation does, it benefitted Moore in a surprisingly personal way. Once a teen turns 18, foster care agencies no longer look after them. But the foundation makes donations to the agencies to allow kids to stay in the system longer. 

"I got to stay in care until I was about 22 or 23," Moore, now 26-years-old, explained. "It was because of this foundation that I was able to be safe for so long and have some kind of structure."

These days, Moore is focusing on their "mental health … everything that keeps me stable," and hopes no one else has to go through what they went through.

“People shouldn’t be homeless, especially in cities, especially in places where you can’t grow your own food out of the dirt,” they said. “So it’s really difficult, especially when you’re a teen, especially when you’re queer, when you’re trans.”