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A video of a woman singing Lady Gaga's 'Shallow' in a social media prank has gone viral, leading internet users to identify the singer and flood her with compliments and Instagram followers.
Kevin Freshwater, a British social media content creator who films prank videos, posted a video of himself asking strangers in the street to finish the lyrics to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's "Shallow" from A Star is Born.
In the original video posted on February 16, Freshwater approached Charlotte Awbery, a singer from East London, England, in a subway, and asked her to complete the lyrics to the song. Awbery seemed confused at first, but then quietly sang the next couple of lines before fully embracing the performance, complete with riffs and a key change.
Twitter user @antpats2 shared the clip of Awbery on Twitter and wrote, "This guy challenged strangers to 'finish the lyrics' and this woman passing by started belting out 'Shallow' like she was performing at the Oscars, literally flawless."
This guy challenged strangers to ‘finish the lyrics’ and this woman passing by started belting out Shallow like she was performing at the Oscars, literally flawless ?
— Anthony ? Lady Gaga News (@antpats2) February 18, 2020
?: Kevin Freshwater pic.twitter.com/P8Vn5qj4Nn
The tweet has more than 13 million views, 688,000 likes, and 150,000 retweets at the time of writing, and the original Facebook post from Freshwater had more than 157,000 likes, 13,000 comments, and 65,000 shares.
Twitter users responded to the tweet to express their admiration for Awbery's singing voice and are urging Lady Gaga to respond.
Twitter user @HotTakesByAdi wrote, "This man really found a random person on the street and she sang Shallow better than Gaga ever has except the time she sang it for the movie, I'm so ashamed..."
This man really found a random person on the street and she sang Shallow better than Gaga ever has except the time she sang it for the movie, I'm so ashame... pic.twitter.com/3wvE3xiDxa
— ADI (@HotTakesByAdi) February 18, 2020
A tweet from @LABeautologist which read, "That cute little 'thank you' at the end, she's so beautiful. And her hair is amazing," currently has more than 25,000 likes.
That cute little “thank you” at the end, she’s so beautiful. & her hair is amazing
— Nayamka Roberts-Smith, LE (@LaBeautyologist) February 18, 2020
Twitter user @KXTYSHOEB wrote, "Lady Gaga who? This literally gave me chills".
Lady Gaga who? This literally gave me chills
— Shoeb (@KXTYSHOEB) February 18, 2020
@Livexlenc on Twitter wrote, "First of all, I want to be able to belt like that randomly ... THE TALENT"
first of all, I want to be able to belt like that randomly ... THE TALENT
— the heifer hoopla resistance (@livexlenc) February 18, 2020
Facebook and Twitter users eventually managed to identify Awbery, whose social media following increased since Freshwater's video. On Tuesday, before the video went viral, Awbery had just over 7,000 followers on Instagram. At the time of writing, that number has jumped to more than 47,000.
Twitter users shared videos from Awbery's Instagram account of her singing various covers, including "Purple Rain", "Never Enough" from The Greatest Showman, and even a cover of "Shallow" from a year ago.
"Shallow," written by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt, won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2019.
Charlotte Awbery and Kevin Freshwater have been contacted for comment.
