Lady Gaga Confirms Super Bowl Roof Stunt, Says It Was Her Sister’s Idea
This article originally appeared on EW.com.
Lady Gaga has confirmed she will perform while suspended from the roof of Houston’s NRG Stadium as part of her highly-anticipated Super Bowl LI halftime show performance — though the stunt wasn’t all her idea.
On Monday, when the hosts of Boston’s Mix 104.1 radio show Karson & Kennedy probed Gaga for more information on the details of the upcoming performance, she initially refused to indulge the speculation. But she later revealed the potentially dangerous high-flying act was devised by an unlikely collaborator: her younger sister, Natali.
“My sister was like, ‘I know, let’s suspend you in the air!’” Gaga said, laughing.
In fact, Gaga admitted she thinks it’s her signature performative bravura that secured the gig on television’s biggest night.
“First of all, there’s a lengthy process to go through, meeting with the NFL and sort of applying and discussing what you would do in the first place. I think that part of how they decide who is going to come and do the halftime show is based on our ideas and what we want to do,” she revealed. “They were really excited about the show we wanted to put on. They’ve been super supportive. They’ve been there every day at the rehearsal space with us and cheering me on as I rehearse. It’s been great.”
Though it’s rumored Gaga, who notched Joanne as her fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in October, will perform with just a core group of dancers despite the show’s reported $10 million production costs, the Karson & Kennedy crew additionally asked Gaga to elaborate on potential guest performers — including Tony Bennett, with whom she released Cheek to Cheek, a collection of jazz recordings, with in 2014.
“I don’t want to say anything or give anything away specifically about what you will see during the halftime show, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for everyone else, but I will tell you that it’s going to be fantastic and Tony is the best there is, and if he was in it, it would be fantastic!”
The 30-year-old also said her halftime set is a passionate labor of love birthed from the minds behind her personal creative team Haus of Gaga, the members of which are partly responsible for some of the pop icon’s most memorable moments — including the infamous meat dress she wore to the 2010 MTV VMAs.
“I have some wonderful friends who are really creative and talented. I’ve been working with them for a really long time – we just got tattoos that say ‘Haus’ – we call ourselves Haus of Gaga, we work together and we’ve been working together for a long time,” Gaga said. “So, we sit down and talk about what we want to say to the world and what we want the world to feel that day and say to each other. We talk a lot about the tremendous honor that it is to have that kind of a voice. We, I guess, ruminate with everyone’s ideas and we put the best ones together.”
Ahead of the event, listen to clips from Gaga’s full interview on Mix 104.1 above, and check out a preview of the Super Bowl halftime show performance here.
Super Bowl LI takes place on Sunday night.
