Celebrities

MEXICO CITY – The religious resentment caused by the premiere of her “Judas” video are not keeping Lady Gaga awake at nights – she defends her message of pardon in the song and says that it is more about ex-boyfriends, betrayal and forgiveness.

“Who doesn’t sometimes feel like Judas, misunderstood, criticized by everyone, needing to be pardoned?” the American pop singer-songwriter said Friday at a massive press conference in the Mexican capital, where she arrived on her Monster Ball Tour a few days before its wrap.

Compared with Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” in the 1980s – in which a black Christ appeared – “Judas” presents Jesus Christ with Latin features and his apostles as a motorcycle gang in Los Angeles and Lady Gaga herself as Mary Magdalene.

The traitor Judas is played by Norman Redus, a cult actor for his role of a street avenger with religious overtones in “The Boondocks Saints.”

The song helped him move beyond a bad experience and realize something: “To overcome the darkness in your life, you have to forgive.”