Two hours late and a sparse crowd: Lauryn Hill's performance leaves fans wondering

Multi-award-winning singer, Lauryn Hill performed at an almost empty stadium after being more than two hours behind schedule at the Essence Festival in New Orleans.

The highly anticipated performance by the 50-year-old artist, which was initially for 12.30am Friday, July 4, finally started in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The “Tell Him” singer took to the stage around 2.30am US time and she captivated the audience for a full hour, closing her set at approximately 3.30am. 

Hill is known for being late for almost every performance or show she is booked at. To many fans, this was not a surprise as they claim that they know she does this all the time.

However, this time around, it seems as though it was not the singer’s fault because the entire night of the concert ran behind schedule, according to “Nola”

Artists such as Glorilla, Jazmine Sullivan Isley Brothers, Coco Jones, BabyFace and Maxwell also performed hours later than the original scheduled time which was shared on the poster.

Despite other artists being late as well, Hill took the heat because many concertgoers shared videos of them waiting in anticipation for Hill with some of them sharing their frustrations about her always being late.

“2.5 hours late to the stage singing to a nearly empty stadium,” @farrahferosh commented.

“She gave us disrespect and lateness. It’s cute how it was filmed to look like it was a full house,” @abercrombie.dana shared.

Hill’s fans however came to her defense and shared that it was not her fault that she performed extremely late because the entire concert was delayed.

“I was there, she came on the stage at 2:31 am! No fault to her because all acts were delayed,” @thyatiriatowns shared.

@jay.out.9._ added: “She was actually waiting on them to change the stage set up, she was on time. The whole show was behind two hours.”