Lady Gaga has revealed she performed five shows at her 2022 Chromatica Ball Tour with COVID-19.
Spanning 20 dates, the Chromatica Ball Tour — which was Gaga’s first ever all-stadium tour — took place between July and September 2022, starting in Germany and ending in Miami.
Ahead of the release of her CHROMATICA BALL concert special, which will be available to stream on Max on May 25, Gaga attended the premiere in LA this week, where she conversed with several hundred fans about the film.
“I’m so incredibly lucky to be here with all of you. I’m so excited,” she began, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“This was such a special time. This tour went on during a time that people didn’t think that you could tour,” she said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent government-mandated lockdowns.
Gaga continued, “Stadiums were packed all over the world and they were sold out, all dressed up and dancing and singing. I’m just so excited for you all to see what we made up close.”
Elsewhere during the chat, Gaga revealed that she did five of her shows “with COVID” because she didn’t want to let her fans down.
She recalled, “I shared it with everyone on my team. I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable at work and you don’t have to perform and you don’t have to work that day, but I’m going to do the show.’”
“I just didn’t want to let all the fans down. And the way that I saw it also is like the fans were all putting themselves in harm’s way every day coming to the show,” she explained.
Fans online were left divided by Gaga’s “wild admission,” with some people calling the singer “irresponsible.”
“Ummm why on earth would you reveal that? You just giving yourself backlash because you’re putting the health and safety of not only yourself, but THOUSANDS of people at risk,” one person tweeted. “As a Gaga fan of over a decade, this isn’t admirable,” someone else wrote.
“i don’t know about y’all but i’d rather my show get postponed than getting sick with such a virus that took millions of lives!” one more post read.
On the other hand, many fans defended Gaga, arguing that her tour took place in large, spacious venues and at a time where restrictions had lifted and most people were vaccinated.
“y’all acting like she was stage diving in the audience and coughing on peoples faces... she was in a STADIUM... like 20 feet away from the audience at all times,” one tweet read.