Turns out, not all of Lady Gaga’s spectacular Super Bowl halftime show performance was live.
The opening — which featured Gaga standing on the roof of NRG Stadium singing bits of “God Bless America” and “This Land Is Your Land” before jumping off the edge — was pre-recorded.
On Sunday, Gaga started the live portion of the halftime show as she was lowered to the stage.
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The first moments of the show, where Gaga was backed by hundreds of Intel drones, was taped on Jan. 30.
“From a logistics and creative perspective, it’s a bit hard for her to go from the roof all the way down to the floor of the stadium,” Intel Drones general manager Natalie Cheung told USA Today.
“We’d hate to plan all this and, if the wind speeds are too high or if it’s raining and the roof is closed, no one can see this spectacular show. So our creative team as well as the Super Bowl creative team felt this would be best to be filmed.”