How Lady Gaga faked the biggest moment of the Super Bowl halftime show

NEWLY leaked video shows all was not as it seemed for the most jaw-dropping moment of the Super Bowl half-time show.

Lady Gaga prerecorded part of her halftime show. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Timothy A. CLARY

IT’S already been hailed as one of the most perfectly executed live performances in recent memory: a military precise 13-minute medley mixing big pop hits with death-defying stunts.

But it seems Lady Gaga’s thrilling Super Bowl halftime show might just have been too good to be true, with video emerging that shows that the performance’s most jaw-dropping moment was in fact prerecorded.

Gaga opened the show atop Houston’s NRG Stadium, delivering a line from the Pledge of Allegiance as the night sky lit up with hundreds of Intel drones forming the colours of the American flag.

Dowwwwwwn she goes. Picture: Tom Pennington/Getty Images/AFP

And then: One giant leap. Gaga hurled herself from the rooftop, dropping out of the camera’s sight and apparently plummeting some 79 metres to the pitch below.

The camera then cut to the view inside the stadium — and there was Gaga, plummeting on wires towards a platform where she’d land and, in just seconds, start her hit-packed medley.

But here’s how it happened: The opening rooftop section — and the start of that leap — was prerecorded way back on January 30. That shocking ‘leap’ into the stadium was filmed in advance (and whenever it was filmed, Gaga most likely landed in a net just below shot).

An audience-filmed video obtained by TMZ shows the view inside the stadium just before the camera picks up Gaga’s ‘plummet’: She’s instead stationary on the wires, awaiting her cue once the prerecorded vision of her fall has aired. Have a look:

LADY. GAGA.#SuperBowl #LadyGaga #PepsiHalftime pic.twitter.com/VKwvCIZpu5

— NFL Brasil (@NFLBrasil) February 6, 2017

So why the prerecord?

It’s understood that weather played a part — the success of the opening sequence hinged on the effectiveness of the glittering drones, so it made sense to nail that ahead of time rather than risk bad weather conditions on the night.

“In February, you don’t know what it will be like during Super Bowl day. 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,” Intel Drones general manager Natalie Cheung told USA Today.

Cheung said there were other logistic issues to take into account. Turns out leaping from the top of a stadium and starting your first song on the ground approximately eight seconds later is a feat beyond even the likes of Lady Gaga.

“Lady Gaga also was on the roof when this was filmed, and 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,” she said.

Gaga’s plummet from the stadium roof was a perfect illusion. Picture: Bob Levey/Getty Images

So there you have it. Lady Gaga didn’t jump off the stadium roof and Santa Claus isn’t real.

Still, Gaga did deliver an undeniably incredible show — and performed all her own stunts, including this badass ‘mic drop’ of a closing shot:

LADY GAGA MIC DROP pic.twitter.com/uzYodh0vGI

— Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) February 6, 2017

Nailed it.

Super Bowl 2017: Lady Gaga’s epic half-time show

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