Last night, Lady Gaga took the stage to perform the halftime show at Super Bowl LI. A lot of people loved the high energy performance, which showcased Lady Gaga's skills as a talented dancer, singer and even pianist. However, the biggest moment from the Super Bowl happened early in the performance when Lady Gaga allegedly jumped from the roof of the dome and dropped down into the stadium. We say allegedly, because new reports indicate that the whole thing was faked.
The whole intro to the performance, which kicked off with a rendition of "God Bless America" sung from what seemed to be the rooftop, was reportedly pre-recorded. Yes, pre-recorded, per TMZ. Those who actually attended Super Bowl LI allegedly saw what we saw on the jumbotron--Lady Gaga singing her little bit before jumping down onto the main stage. However, those in the stadium who looked up would not have seen Lady Gaga actually jumping from the retractable roof. Instead, they would have seen her get dropped from a height halfway up in the stadium. At the point where she began dropping a spotlight caught her, making it seem like she actually jumped from the roof.
This allegation makes sense, not only because we only saw Gaga start to drop from the roof before the camera cut into the stadium during the actual performance, as shown in this footage. Those taping the halftime show in the stadium, however, gave us a pretty clear view of when the pre-recorded footage dropped and when Lady Gaga's performance actually began. Give it a watch, below.
Now we should note that the Super Bowl halftime show has been filled with trickery before and will likely be filled with trickery again. We should also note that even if Lady Gaga did not jump 260 feet from the top of the stadium to the ground, she was still pretty brave just for flying down from the halfway point she did reportedly drop from. Still, the rooftop jump was the highlight of the performance, and this year I don't think there will be a left shark at any point to distract us from the fact that her big moment was shot prior to the Super Bowl itself.
It's sort of crazy that the stadium went so far as to open up the retractable roof and keep the magic alive for all of the millions of viewers who were watching the game from the comfort of their own homes. If you are going to do something gimmicky like singing from the rooftop, perhaps it would have been better to actually perform live. Perhaps there were simply too many moving pieces, or too much wind, or maybe Lady Gaga herself chickened out. We'll have to wait and see whether she makes an official statement. I'm really hoping for an Adele-level blunt response. Stay tuned.
