Lady Gaga has been surprising us lately with a rebellious streak that’s been both equally unexpected and endearing. For someone who created a name for herself with spectacles like wearing a sparkly lobster on her face, I’m pretty sure the last thing anyone expected was for her to go au natural and pose in her skivvies on her social site Little Monsters to confront body issues in dialogue with her fans. The honesty and vulnerability she showed was surprising and—I’ll say it—inspiring.

Then yesterday she showed up to chill with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Gaga was in town to promote her new perfume (of course) and according to Atlantic Wire the whole thing kicked off when MIA tweeted at her, “if ur at harrods today , come visit Assange at the Ecuador embassy across the st. im there. ill bring TEA and CAKE.” No one’s sure if MIA showed up or not (or whether tea and cake are some kind of code—I’m going to say yes for the sake of intrigue) but 24 hours later Gaga posted this pic of her and Assange.

Given that Assange is a public enemy to most first-world governments and Gaga is an establishment pop star who first got famous by capturing the hearts of tweens, I think we can also go ahead and qualify this as unexpected. Call it the Iconoclast Tour 2012.

And no, Assange doesn’t look so hot. Yes, that is a stain on his shirt. But this is what people who work from home look like—no judging.

Image: Little Monsters