Lauryn Hill Slammed for Arriving Two Hours Late to Atlanta Show
Lauryn Hill is once again being criticized for a familiar reason. The iconic Miseducation MC-singer was blasted on Friday (May 6) for being more than two hours late for her Atlanta show at Chastain Park Amphitheater.
Due to her late arrival and the venue’s 11 p.m. curfew, L. Boogie only managed to perform for 40 minutes.
It’s unclear why the former Fugees star was so tardy, but in a video that surfaced on Twitter, she seemed to blame her driver for being one of the “Lost Ones.” “My driver got lost,” she said to an upset fan in the clip. “I can’t control it.”
https://twitter.com/NathanNAVY/status/728812006837501953
Fans responded angrily on social media.
https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/728832230831890432
https://twitter.com/eleven8/status/728783380976939008
https://twitter.com/JamilahLemieux/status/728929212170637312
Jewel Wicker, a reporter for Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said the performance itself wasn’t “bad.” “Nothing about Hill’s time on stage was bad,” she wrote. “That’s what makes this so frustrating. This probably would’ve been a good show had fans been privy to the entire set. But, nothing Hill did was good enough to make her tardiness acceptable, either.”
This isn’t the first time Ms. Hill has been criticized for being late to a performance. In fact, she’s had a habit of doing just that throughout the course of her career, including late arrivals at a 2011 show in Brooklyn, 2014’s Voodoo Festival, a 2015 New York concert, and more.
Just this year, Lauryn was scheduled to appear at the Grammys, but seemed to back out at the last minute. Her rep later blamed the organizers for announcing L. Boogie’s appearance “prematurely and without approval.”
Neil Portnow, the president of the Recording Academy, later refuted those claims, saying that Hill was simply late to the show after running through a dress rehearsal earlier in the day. “She was there for it, completed it, and left the building,” he said. “And then she did not get back in time to make the show.”