It’s been 25 years since Madonna debuted “Like A Prayer” and first sang the illusory lyrics “life is a mystery.” And time seems to have proven that the greatest mystery of all for Her Madgesty is how to start her own concerts on time. I guess she just can’t get into the groove! Her clock is on holiday! The stage manager says “We only got four minutes” but Madge doesn’t listen! Oh, I crack myself up. Madonna was sued in January by two concertgoers for starting her Dec. 13 Brooklyn show more than two hours late. Now three attendees of her Dec. 18 show in DC have filed another suit over Madonna’s tardiness. The kicker with this one is that Madame X started out the DC concert by rescinding an apology for the two hour delay. Your honor, Exhibit A: “It’s who I am… I’m always late.”
Seeing red: Three formerly true-blue Madonna fans are now seeing red. They have filed a federal class-action lawsuit in Washington, D.C. against the singer and Live Nation complaining that she was allegedly late getting onstage. The fans, Elizabeth Halper-Asefi, Mary Conoboy, and Nestor Monte, Jr., claim that their tickets said the Celebration Tour would begin at 8:30 p.m. but that Madge didn’t make an appearance until 10:30 p.m. on each of her D.C. dates in December.
‘A consumer’s worst nightmare’: In the filing, obtained by Rolling Stone, the D.C. three say they feel “deceived.” They also claim that they “had to leave the concerts early prior to the concerts’ conclusion, therefore depriving each of them of the benefit of seeing the complete concert.” The lawsuit further alleges that Madonna “maintained[ed] a hot and uncomfortable temperature in the venue during her performance” and that she “lip sync[ed] much of her performance.” These alleged actions, they claim, represent “Madonna’s arrogant and total disrespect” for ticketholders. “In essence, Madonna and Live Nation are a consumer’s worst nightmare,” the lawsuit claims.
Sorry, not sorry: When Madonna got onstage at the Dec. 18 D.C. show that the fans were at, the suit claims she told the crowd: “I am sorry I am late… no, I am not sorry, it’s who I am… I’m always late.” One of the plaintiffs, Halper-Asefi, spent $992.76 on tickets from StubHub, while the others purchased theirs from Ticketmaster. Conoboy spent $537.70 on two tickets while Monte shelled out $252.44 for two. “Defendants failed to provide any notice to the ticketholders that the Concerts would start much later than the start time printed on the ticket and as advertised, which resulted in the ticketholders waiting for hours for the Concerts to begin at the venue,” the lawsuit claims.
A pattern of behavior: Interestingly, the suit cites several examples of past Madonna tours where she did not get onstage promptly, including her 2016 Rebel Heart tour and Madame X concerts in Brooklyn, suggesting Madonna’s alleged tardiness is well known. “There have been myriad articles in the media and the internet over the years of fans complaining about Madonna not taking the stage for several hours after the advertised start time of her concerts,” the complaint reads. “Unfortunately, not all people who rely on advertising for the concerts know this. Further, even if some ticket purchasers know of Madonna’s unfortunate history of starting her concerts late, they do not know how late she will show-up [sic] on stage at any particular concert, so ticket purchasers arrived at the start time as advertised.”
Read the footnote: A lawyer for the plaintiffs directed Rolling Stone to a footnote from the filing that states, “This Complaint is not about unhappy fans who don’t want to stay up late, but instead, reasonable, responsible people who had commitments to babysitters, work, getting their vehicles out of parking lots that closed at 12:00 midnight, and realizing that public transportation would no longer be operating.”
Most of the arguments here are the same as with the other lawsuit. With that first one, I was going back and forth on whether it’s effective for the plaintiffs to harp on Madonna’s history of starting shows late. My concern was that they were making themselves vulnerable to the counter-argument that if she’s notorious for being late, shouldn’t the concertgoers have anticipated that possibility? But I’ve come around now, especially with seeing the ticket prices included in the filing. People have a right to expect the show to start at the time it says on the ticket, so that they can make all other logistical arrangements AND get to see the whole show. I can’t wait to see fake Celebration Tour merch pop up on Etsy with the tagline, Madonna + Live Nation: a consumer’s worst nightmare.
Lastly, I have to bring up again — because it cannot be forgotten amid these lawsuits — that Madonna used to charge her backup dancers $100 a minute for being late to rehearsals. Karma is a slick mistress with patience, a sense of poetry, and a long memory.
Photos credit: Backgrid and via Instagram
Like the article says, even if they know she is habitually late, you don’t know how late she will be so how do you know when to arrive? Other people’s time is worth money same as Madonna’s. She needs to get over herself.
Two hours late is outrageous. I’m surprised the venues will accommodate her – costs them money too.
This. Every single employee that works for the venue now has to stay and be paid hours past what they expected. Then they’re also likely having to come into work the next day at their regular starting time.
Calling her entitled is an insult to entitled people. Is she worth this kind of money?
No, she is not.
You’d need to pay me enough to last me 10 lifetimes to even consider sitting through her caterwauling.
Two hours late is unacceptable. Pay up Madonna. Many people have to get up early to go to work and they paid good money to see her perform on time. Why the delay anyway? She knows she has to be there at a certain time. Fame went to her head finally.
She had a couple concerts in Amsterdam last December, and the same thing happened. After the first concert especially, tons of people were stranded since public transport only runs until about midnight—it was a bit less bad during the second concert since people realized they had to leave early. So, the people leaving early had less than half a concert.
I don’t think she even cares. If it’s okay to dock her employees wages for lateness, but she doesn’t have to follow the same rules, then there is something fundamentally wrong with her. She should have to reimburse people who need to leave early and pay a fine or something. She’s got to realize that people who need to use public transport or who work or need an earlier bedtime or whatever are also entitled to that—it’s fairly easy for her to make an effort to start on time. And it’s especially galling when the other bands traveling with her can do this—in Amsterdam there was over an 1.5 hour gap between acts!
They have to go after Live Nation hard. Going after Madonna isn’t going to change her at all. Going after live nation. They won’t pay for her to go on tour. That will get her attention. Plus with her health and age this might be her last tour.
She hasn’t taken public transport or worked a regular job in ages, thus she doesn’t care. This is what her stans need to understand. All she cares about is the money and attention. She’s practically screaming it with her behaviour.
It’s the concert running past the parking lots closing and subways shutting down that kills it for me. Are people supposed to get hotel rooms nearby or walk home?
Places really need to have the Glastonbury rule. Power cuts off in time for people to get to the subway and parking lots. If the concert gets cut off, make it obvious that it is the artist’s fault, not the people who need to get home.
She used to be a complete narcissist with a great work ethic but now she’s just a complete narcissist, full stop. I really hope that these lawsuits continue and promoters are forced to get their acts in line to start on time. She isn’t the only one, but her seats are so ridiculously expensive and her audience older with more commitments that they are revolting against her.
On another note, how can you use so much FaceTune on social media and not realize you look like a cartoon? If you look at the pictures from the shows, her face looks completely different (albeit cartoonish in a different way). I just wish she would accept aging and live her life without worrying about youth so much. Her vibe is so counter to how she was in the 80s, 90s and 00s.
It’s especially annoying in DC bc the metro stops running at like midnight on weekdays and 1 am on weekends, so if that is the transportation you used, you could end up in trouble. A lot of people take the metro bc it runs right under one of DCs major venues. I think it was Beyonce that paid for the metro to run later on year, which was SUPER cool of her.
That being said, I feel like this has been a thing of hers for a while, so I almost feel like that could be a defense–Like, oh, you’re a fan, then you had knowledge of how she does things and it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I just wonder, what is she doing back stage? Like, seriously, it’s more fun hanging out and wasting time?
Exactly. She’s late, but she’s consistently late and anyone who’s a big enough fan to shell out for ticket$ should know this and plan accordingly. Heck, even when I don’t know an artist well, I can go on setlist.fm to learn the average time they take the stage.
No. Respect the fans. Without them you’re nothing.
Hell no. People pay a lot of money for those tickets and their time is just as valuable as hers. Parking, babysitters, public transportation, whatever. She owes concert goers to start on time. Anything else is entitled BS
In a nut shell, I have a life. It’s why I’ve never gone to a Madonna concert.
Walking around at night after everything has shut down is not safe. Once you get past the venue, there are no other people, all the lights are out, getting from the transit station to your car is scary. If the concert ends at the normal time, lights are still on in the parking lot, workers are still in the station or shops. This isn’t just ‘you didn’t read the news about late concert starts’. I’m not risking my life for Madonna.
When I left a Madonna concert recently, I was surrounded by other concert goers from venue to parking garage. Thousands of people only walking to half a dozen places. Trust me, you won’t be alone.
That works with for people driving home from the stadium. But not for people who take the metro home. They don’t all get off at the same stop. And by the time you get off at your stop, by yourself, in the suburbs an hour later, everything is shut down at 1, 2am. All the employees at the station have gone home, so there is no one to yell for help. Even if you planned ahead and parked under a light, there’s no guarantee it’s on, because they usually leave on only 1/3 of the lot lights. So yeah, safety is one of the problems 2 hour late starts cause.
I loved Madonna in the 80’s & 90’s (even had a poster of her on my bedroom wall) but she’s always been up her own ass, and it’s just gotten worse as she ages.
FYI: Like a Prayer came out 35 years ago, not 25 (gawd I’m old)!
Those 10 years I left off will just be arriving 2+ hours late with the start of the show. 😉
Thanks for the correction!
Yeah. Seems like it all went so fast.
Her face looks so strange.
As someone who attended multiple Guns N Roses shows in the early 1990s- Axl would have been screwed in today’s world. He was ALWAYS late.
I remeber Duff McKagan writing about this in his book, how this added to Duffs anxiety and weren’t there riot at some place when Axl was late more than two hours. Also this made Duff realise that this kind of behaviour was wasting other peoples time, people who didn’t have luxury to sleep in next day or not go to work or not to take care of their loved ones
Two hours late is ridiculous. I have never seen anything like that.
Apparently Madonna being very late like that is common. If fans accept that extreme tardiness and do not think they are being disrespected, then fine. It’s their business.
Doesn’t she have Live DVDs of her concerts?
Her fans could get one of them and watch her at home.
They start two hours late.
Hum she seems to clearly understand the value of time when she charges her dancers by the minute when they’re late. Typical narc behavior. “I can waste everyone else’s time but my time can’t be wasted.”
I just saw this!
In his memoir, House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul recalled the time Madonna allegedly looked at him with “a snarl of contempt at the sight.” At the time, they were at the Pyramid Club in NYC, and he added, “I felt intuitively that, in an instant, she had sized me up and seen that I had noting of value to provide her. In clocking me as a eunuch, I became worthless to her.”
Also, when asked by Graham Norton (on his show) if Madonna was a fan of his back in the day (80s NYC), and RuPaul replied, “Honey, Madonna is only a fan of Madonna!”
It shouldn’t be a requirement for everyone who purchases a ticket — including people who might purchase tickets as gifts for someone else— to do deep enough dives to learn that Madonna is habitually late to concerts. If this is the case, then I think it’s on the venue and the advertisers to affix little asterisks to each ticket and each mention of every show and prior to each ticket purchase with stated warnings that “Madonna is habitually late” and any start times are only aspirational.
Unfortunately that’s likely to be the answer here going forward. There will be an asterisk and a disclaimer and nothing else will change.
It is wild to me that she started 2 hours late–like, that’s almost as much time later than her show was long! I just can’t understand WHY you would be so very late to appear at your own concert, habitually. WTF are you doing? Do you not want to do this job? It shows so much lack of respect for everyone working for her, and for the people who paid to see her in concert.
You couldn’t pay me to go see Madonna. And she is my generation. All my friends went recently. She was two hours late and allows no air conditioning. No. Thank. You.
No AC? Like a cat with a mouse, except the mice are starting to nip.
elsa same! I was 13 when the first album came out, saw her in a small venue here and was such a fan. all my friends went to the recent tour but I was like I dont know when it ends or how we will get home and it will be cold out. this seems more like a weird wilderness adventure than a fun night.
Was that the Austin show? Because she did that at her show in Austin too.
Why no air conditioning!?!
I have never been a Madonna fan. I always thought she was a hack. Reading all this reinforces that.
PS: she looks awful.
Saw her a week ago here in Austin. She was also late as hell PLUS the Moody Center where she was performing was HOT AF. It was kind of miserable. I’ve seen quite a few pop divas on tour: Lana del Rey, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift — they were all right-on-time, put on a great show (in Ari and Tay’s case, they performed nearly 30/40 songs without missing a BEAT), and very respectful of their fans’ schedules. I see no reason for Madonna to behave this way in the year of our Lord Beyonce 2024.
I had a ton of friends who went to the Austin concert. She doesn’t allow AC. IN TEXAS.
Wonder if her illness before the tour affected her voice that much. And AC makes it so she can’t sing at all? Not apologizing for her. But went to a couple of her concerts decades ago. And don’t remember no AC. And she didn’t seem to be that late back then either.
I had friends at that show it sounded horrific. My response to an invitation was “you couldn’t pay me to go”.
It’d be fascinating if Live Nation added some serious teeth to their contracts with her in the future. I’d love to see her lose a percentage for each minute she’s late. Currently, the price of doing this is low enough that she’s willing to pay it. The only groups with the power to change her behavior are the fans and Live Nation. Here we are years later and people are STILL paying hundreds of dollars for her concert tickets, so the fans clearly aren’t going to stop her. She makes money behaving this way and she has no incentive to stop. Bad press and failed lawsuits aren’t going to do it.
Plus this might be her last tour. Mainly because of her health. She can’t do what she used to do. And her health scare before this tour might have finally gotten her attention that she’s not indestructible.
I find this disgusting.
I’ve seen some legendary bands and artists over the years, and none of them have been late- 10/15mns max to build the anticipation, and that was it.
Then hours of music and no lypsincing.
How about respecting your fans?
I’ve never cared for her and now can not stand her. Her arrogance combined with her perpetual victim status is boring and banal. She’s another entertainer that spends fr too much time telling everyone how awesome she is when she should let her actions speak for themselves.
Do want to add that the photo on the link she looks better than I’ve seen her in a while. Face less puffy.
Saw Soul Glo playing a few weeks ago. They didn’t show up at the venue until after the listed start time and started their set 45 minutes late. I was annoyed, but it also somehow feels wrong for a hardcore punk band to be punctual. Once they started though, they absolutely ripped shit up, so all was forgiven.
But, like…Madonna? With all that staff and production, playing multiple nights in that venue, to keep showing up 2 hours late? Get the hell out of here. I’m all for these lawsuits.
These lawsuits are not very interesting and are old news, imv. What’s more interesting is that Madonna will be performing a massive FREE & televised concert on May 4th in Brazil at the Copa Cabana Beach to an estimated one million plus attendees! Should be wild! Sling TV (International/Brazil/TV Globo) is one way to access this concert for those interested. (I’ve already seen the concert live but will record it because of the time difference. Sling is offering a free 30-day recording option, otherwise it’s a $5/mo add on.)
Unless there is a REALLY good reason concerts should start within 30 minutes of the ticket time. Crowd safety being the most important one.
The one I’ve seen – it was an outdoor stadium show and there were thunderstorms in the area. There was sufficient covered space to keep the crowd safe while they waited out the storms, which were expected to pass within 90 minutes. The rain was coming down in sheets and we could hear the thunder from inside the stadium. It was the last show before the band left for the international legs of the tour. Between the band’s schedule and the stadium schedule, It would have been 18 months or more before it could be rescheduled. The show started two hours late and the band played for 3 and a half hours – they finished up at around 1:45am.
It was the Meadowlands, so there were no issues with noise for the neighbors – it’s not near any residential neighborhoods. The trains & busses back to Manhattan were held until the end of the show and the NYC subway runs 24/7. It was also a Friday night, so a lot of people had the next day off.
Starting two hours late because the artist’s ego is inflated? That’s a hard no.
The older I get the less patience I have for this sort of tardiness. I nearly walked out of a concert because of it but they appeared 3 minutes into my “they’ve got 5 minutes then I’m out” and there was no lip syncing :). But Madonna’s known lateness doesn’t excuse anything like the plaintiffs should have known. All it proves is that she has been sloppy for years and managed to not get sued for it until now. People have been patient but now it’s enough.
I think Madonna is on drugs. I had a friend who started abusing Adderall and xanex and to say that he was chronically late is a gross understatement. And he was super punctual before the drugs.
For example, he and I were going to drive to NYC together from DC, and he told me to be ready at 10AM, and he didn’t end up picking me up until 8PM. And that is not an extreme example. He’s been late for court, late to his father’s funeral, late for his college graduation (he didnt get to walk as a result) he simply could NOT be on time. Ever. And I don’t mean 30 min late, I mean HOURS late. Except for court. There he was only 15-20 min late.
Also drugs explains all the horrid plastic surgery. Madonna is starting to look like Jocelyn Wildenstein, the Cat Lady.