The premiere of the documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero was delayed after a bomb threat was called in at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The Saturday night premiere of the film at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall was delayed by about 20 minutes while authorities verified that the threat wasn’t credible. Lil Nas X was kept off the red carpet during that time.
Judy Lung, vice president of public affairs and communications for TIFF, said in a statement that Toronto police investigated the vicinity of the red carpet ahead of the screening.
“Our standard security measures remained in place during this time and the screening commenced with a slight delay,” Lung said. “To our knowledge, this was a general threat and not directed at the film or the artist.”
Long Live Montero, directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel, documents the pop superstar’s eight-month tour beginning in September 2022 for his full-length debut album Montero.
The premiere occurred Saturday night (Sep. 09, 2023) at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall and was featured as one of the film festival’s gala screenings, complete with a pre-screening red carpet.
The “Oldtown Road” rapper appeared on the red carpet once the threat was cleared and posed with some of his family members, according to a video he posted to his Instagram page.
Directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero features footage of Lil Nas X “as he navigated the whirlwind of fame, creativity, and growing responsibility that came with his meteoric success,” according to an official synopsis.
The documentary “offers a joyous immersion in the world of a game-changing artist and the fans who’ve joined him in that change,” the synopsis continued. “To watch concertgoers express what it means to share space with a Black, gay superstar, with their fellow fans, and with thousands of families brought into their world through the power of pop music, is to capture a precious image of how transformation happens.”
