Madonna's attorneys on Thursday filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the pop superstar for starting a concert two hours late, arguing the plaintiffs didn't demonstrate any clear injuries, court documents show.
Plaintiffs Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden filed the lawsuit earlier this year after attending one of Madonna's global Celebration Tour shows in Brooklyn in December, alleging they were "misled" by the 8:30 p.m. advertised start time.
They also sued Barclays Center and Live Nation for "wanton exercise in false advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices."
The plaintiffs argued they wouldn't have purchased tickets if they'd known the concert was going to start at 10:30 p.m. They also claimed the show's end time of about 1 a.m. possibly inconvenienced or injured concertgoers as a result of limited transportation options and being forced to stay up later than planned.
Madonna's legal team argued that concerts rarely start on time, and specifically highlighted that Madonna's concerts are notorious for their late starts. They also noted that Hadden had posted on Facebook the day after the concert stating that he had "never missed a Madonna Tour" and had been to every Madonna tour since 1985, indicating that the late start should not have been a surprise to him.
According to court documents, Hadden had praised the show on Facebook, describing it as "[i]ncredible, as always!"
"Mr. Hadden's statements in press interviews suggest that he may have been annoyed by the late start time, but this does not justify a claim of injury," Madonna's lawyers argued.
The legal team also contended that there was no evidence to support the claim that the late start time had caused harm to any concert attendees, including the plaintiffs, who stayed for the entire show instead of leaving early.
"Fans received exactly what they paid for: a full-length, high-quality performance by the Queen of Pop," Madonna's lawyers stated.
The lawsuit filed in January was not the first instance of fans attempting to take legal action over Madonna's late start times. In 2019, a fan in Florida sued over a delayed start in Miami Beach.
"There's something that you all need to understand," Madonna told her fans during a Las Vegas concert in 2019. "And that is, that a queen is never late."
