Madonna is facing a lawsuit from two fans who attended her New York City concert and say that she and event organizers lied about the show’s start time.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Eastern New York, plaintiffs Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden accuse the “Vogue” singer, 65 — as well as Live Nation and Barclays Center — of engaging in “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive trade practices.”
ET has reached out to Madonna’s representatives, Live Nation, Barclays, and the two fans who have brought the lawsuit.
Fellows and Hadden say they attended a show during the Brooklyn leg of Madonna’s Celebration Tour on Dec. 13 and were dismayed when the show, advertised to begin at 8:30 p.m., allegedly did not see the singer take the stage until “between 10:45 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.” The shows on Dec. 14 and Dec. 16 at Barclays Center also started more than two hours late, they claim. They say they were also given no warning as to the concert’s late start time.
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The two men, both New York residents according to court docs obtained by ET, argue that the alleged two-hour delay resulted in the concert not ending until after 1 a.m., causing them to encounter issues with “limited public transportation, limited ride-sharing, and/or increased public and private transportation costs.”
Fellows and Henderson also claim that since the concert occurred on a weeknight, they “had to get up early to go to work and/or take care of their family responsibilities the next day” on fewer hours of sleep due to the alleged delay.
According to the two fans, the singer has a “long history of arriving and starting her concerts late, sometimes several hours late” and the issue has persisted throughout her previous tours, including the 2016 Rebel Heart Tour and the 2019-2020 Madame X Tour. Through her alleged lateness, the pair claim Madonna is facilitating an “exercise in false advertising” and “negligent misrepresentation.”
They are seeking “damages, statutory damages, treble damages, exemplary damages, costs and attorneys’ fees,” as well as a trial by jury.
The lawsuit comes months after Madonna announced that the Celebration Tour, previously postponed due to a summer hospitalization, would resume in October.
The Celebration Tour kicked off in Europe, starting with four sold-out shows at the O2 in London and then moved to North America with the Dec.13 show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn — which is the show the plaintiffs in the case attended.
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