Madonna is being sued by two of her fans who claim the “Material Girl” falsely promised a concert start time that she repeatedly failed to keep.
New Yorkers Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden accuse Madonna, the Barclays Center and Live Nation of “unconscionable, unfair and/or deceptive trade practices” in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn.
The concert flyer and advertising for Madonna's three “Celebration” concerts in New York in December stated that the show would begin at 8:30 p.m., but as the complaint states, the shows did not begin until sometime after 10:30 p.m . Now the couple's fans argue that this constitutes a breach of contract.
According to the filing, fans claim they “faced limited public transportation, limited ridesharing, and/or increased public and private transportation costs” because their show ended after midnight on December 13th.
“Madonna had demonstrated frivolous difficulty in ensuring a timely or complete performance, and Defendants were aware that any statement about a show's start time amounted to, at best, optimistic speculation,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also cited the delayed start times of Madonna's Dec. 14 and 16 shows at the venue, noting the pop star's “long history of arriving and starting late at his concerts.” The defendants' actions “constituted not only a breach of contract,” the lawsuit said, “but also a wanton exercise in false advertising” and “negligent misrepresentation.”
Representatives for Madonna and Live Nation did not immediately respond to Variety's request for comment.
Madonna has a history of arriving late to her shows and performances, and the lawsuit notes this pattern, writing that “during her 2016 Rebel Heart Tour, her Madame was over two hours late.” Because of this history, the lawsuit seeks to dismiss Wednesday announced class action status.
Madonna's current concert performance was postponed until July last year because the singer was hospitalized for a bacterial infection she contracted in June. She is scheduled to complete the US leg of the concert on April 15 in Texas.