Madonna is facing another federal class action lawsuit over late starts to her concerts, this time filed by spurned Washington D.C. ticket buyers who are accusing her of showing “total disrespect for her fans.”
In a complaint filed Friday in D.C. federal court, three fans claim that the Queen of Pop broke the law by taking the stage two hours late at a pair of December concerts at the city’s Capital One Arena.
The lawsuit, which also named concert giant Live Nation as a defendant, says that the late starts amount to “a wanton exercise in false advertising.”
“Forcing consumers to wait hours for her performance in a hot, uncomfortable arena is demonstrative of Madonna’s arrogant and total disrespect for her fans,” lawyers for the fans wrote. “In essence, Madonna and Live Nation are a consumer’s worst nightmare.”
The new case comes three months after Madonna was hit with a similar lawsuit over delayed starts to December shows in New York City. That case made headlines because it claimed the fans “had to get up early to go to work” the next day – a claim Madonna’s lawyers have since argued is not the kind of “cognizable injury” that can form the basis for a lawsuit.
In Friday’s complaint, which was filed by the same lawyers as the New York case, the fans seemed intent on heading off that same kind of backlash. “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.”
Like the previous case, the lawsuit is a proposed class action that aims to represent all fans who experienced similar problems from the late start. A rep for Madonna and Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
Filed by fans Elizabeth Halper-Asefi, Mary Conoboy, and Nestor Monte, Jr., the new case claims that Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 tour dates on Madonna’s Celebration Tour listed an 8:30 p.m. start time, but that the shows did not start until 10:40. When the star finally did take the stage, they say she offered no apologies: “I am sorry I am late… no, I am not sorry, it’s who I am… I’m always late.”
In the earlier New York case, Madonna and Live Nation’s lawyers have argued that “no reasonable concertgoer—and certainly no Madonna fan—would expect the headline act at a major arena concert to take the stage at the ticketed event time” and that fans cannot sue over something they knew about when they bought their tickets.
But in Friday’s complaint, lawyers for the D.C. fans called that argument “absurd.”
“In fact, reasonable consumers have seen that concerts featuring Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, whose tours are also promoted by Live Nation, do start on the time indicated on the ticket and have similar experiences attending Broadway theater, NFL football and Major League baseball games,” the lawyers write.
The new case includes notable new allegations beyond the delayed start. For instance, the D.C. fans also claim the venue was “uncomfortably hot” and that Madonna herself had insisted on the temperature. When fans allegedly chanted “A.C.” at her, they say she responded “f**k you! I’m cold!… If you’re hot, take your f**king clothes off!”
The new case also claims that Madonna lip synched portions of the D.C. shows – another bit of alleged false advertising to fans who expected that she would “perform her music live” from the stage. “Had plaintiffs and other class members known that … the performer would be lip synching, they would not have purchased their tickets.”
