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"    Photo: Getty Images   Last night, Hollywood gathered to celebrate The Trevor Project, which serves as a free and confidential 24-hour lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning teens in crisis. At the event, Katy Perry was also honored with the Trevor Hero Award for the work she does to support the LGBTQ community. Celebrities\u2014including Amy Poehler, Samantha Ronson, Rashida Jones, Zoe Saldana, and Whitney Cummings\u2014as well as cast members from acceptance-themed shows like Glee, Revenge, Modern Family, and The New Normal were in attendance to bring awareness and help with fundraising.   Brad Goreski, wearing an emerald velvet Dries van Noten blazer, admitted to us that he was the target of bullies growing up. Now given the opportunity, he&amp;#039;d tell those same kids: &amp;quot;Thank you for helping me develop a thicker skin, so I could get out into the world and do the thing that I was meant to do.&amp;quot; Recognizing the importance of The Trevor Project\u2014which has received over 1,000 calls from LGBTQ teens since Thanksgiving\u2014he continued, &amp;quot;I learned that with age\u2026but it&amp;#039;s very hard to do when you are fourteen.&amp;quot; Hosted at The Hollywood Palladium, the two-hour event, dubbed Trevor Live, included performances by OneRepublic&amp;#039;s frontman Ryan Tedder, Broadway legend Betty Buckley, Matthew Morrison, and Kristin Chenoweth and Anna Kendrick (who took on a duet). As the night came to a close, Glee&amp;#039;s Darren Criss performed an acoustic version of Perry&amp;#039;s song, &amp;quot;Part of Me,&amp;quot; before inviting her to the stage to accept her award. In introducing her, he addressed her with her own lyrics, &amp;quot;Katy, you&amp;#039;re a firework.&amp;quot;  Perry opened up to the crowd, &amp;quot;I grew up in a very intolerant environment.&amp;quot; She continued, &amp;quot;For a long time, I was told that people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning were an abomination. As I&amp;#039;ve grown up, I&amp;#039;ve freed myself from the mindset.&amp;quot; Explaining that the LGBTQ community is &amp;quot;intricately woven&amp;quot; into her everyday life today\u2013including her management, assistant, best friend, and fan base\u2014she thanked God that &amp;quot;there&amp;#039;s been some perspective and growth in my family.&amp;quot; She echoed the strong message that The Trevor Project works so hard to sends to LGBTQ teens nation-wide: &amp;quot;My mantra is be yourself and you can be anything.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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