With Super Bowl LVI just around the corner, Lady Gaga appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! On Monday discussed performing in the Super Bowl LI halftime show.
The New England Patriots came back from a 28-3 gap to beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime in Super Bowl LI, which is remembered as the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. Patriots receiver Julian Edelman also made one of the most spectacular catches in-game history at a crucial moment. But it was Lady Gaga’s “silly decision” to make a catch as part of her performance that she wanted to talk about.
“Playing the Super Bowl is a huge honor, and I remember — and I got the phone call to play the show, I just cried. I just cried and ran around my room,” Gaga said. “And then I don’t know why I made a very silly decision to decide to try to catch a touchdown at the end.”
Gaga’s high-flying performance went off without a hitch, but her decision to catch a football during rehearsals was not looking like a winner.
“I wanted to jump in and jump out of the performance because I thought it was compositionally interesting,” Gaga said. “So I was so super excited to catch this football, but four out of five times that we practiced it, I didn’t get it.”
Everyone on Gaga’s team wanted to be the one to throw her the ball during the performance, but because rehearsals weren’t going so well, at least for that part of the show, she insisted on having an actual quarterback do it, and it worked! Gaga had caught the ball and wanted everyone to know it.
“It was funny because I — no one could see, but I landed in this giant foam pit as you would see in a gym or something,” Gaga said. “And I landed in the pit and went, ‘Did I catch it?l I caught it! I caught it! Did they get it? Did they get it on camera? Did the people see it?’”
Though it was far from the most important catch made that night in Houston, Gaga was well aware of what was on the line.
“Did you ever think, like, ‘If I miss, if this ball bounces off my head, everyone’s gonna laugh at me for a long time?’” Kimmel asked. “Oh, I knew the headline would be, like, you know, ‘The Patriots win and Lady Gaga loses’,” Gaga said. “Like, ‘Stick to singing, honey.’”
