Barack Obama Gives the Presidential Middle Finger to Chris Brown and Phil Spector

Katy Perry's performance of "By the Grace of God" was prefaced by two very important messages, the first coming from none other than President Barack Obama. Via a video message taped in the White House, Obama made a brief but powerful statement directed towards the stars in the room, encouraging them to take a stand against sexual assault and domestic violence. Citing statistics on how many women have been victims of rape and domestic violence, Obama was a great intro to the impassioned spoken word of domestic violence activist and survivor Brooke Axtell. While Perry's performance was strong and poignant in its own right, nothing compares to hearing the POTUS take such a strong public stance against violence against women just before a woman had a platform to deliver her experiences in her own words.