After a spectacular performance that had Fergie crying into her pillow and Lady Gaga slapped firmly back in her place, Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show ended with Madge disappearing in a puff of smoke like someone dropped a house on her sister. As backup singers Cee Lo, M.I.A., Nicki Minaj, and LMFAO, dispersed, the phrase “World Peace” appeared in gold pompoms. We were surprised they didn’t read “Fuck you, Elton John.”
The feud between the two queens has a history longer than the Capulets and the Montagues, but was recently stirred back up again after the Golden Globes, where Madonna won for Best Original Song. During her acceptance speech, the cameras panned to a stony-faced Sir John (who was also up for the award), who had just finished telling Carson Daly on the red carpet that Madonna “hasn’t got a fucking chance” at winning.
Then Elton John’s partner David Furnish took to calling out Madge on Twitter and Facebook, and the whole debacle turned vicious.
Though the three reportedly made up, when asked recently if he had any advice for his adversary’s Super Bowl performance, Sir John didn’t take the high road. “Make sure you lip-sync good.,” the singer relayed in an interview with Good Morning America. Then he conceded:
Of course you have to play live, but I don’t think you can. In all fairness to everyone who’s done it before, I think you may be able to sing live, but it’s really hard to play live.
(By the way, this wasn’t the first time Elton John has accused Madonna of not singing during her performances.)
Yes, Madonna was mostly lip-syncing through the majority of the performance: throughout the fifteen minutes of strenuous calisthenics and acrobatic maneuvers, she never sounded less than radio-perfect. (The jury is still out on her “Like a Prayer” duet with Cee Lo, which sounded live despite the fact that the 53-year-old never missed a note.)
Watch the whole thing here:
