Fame Kills: Starring Lady Gaga and Kanye West, also known as The Lady Gaga/Kanye West Tour, was a planned 2009-2010 tour featuring Lady Gaga and Kanye West. For the tour, which would have supported West's fourth album 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and Gaga's second album The Fame Monster (2009), the pair conceived a production that would unite their different musical audiences. The tour was scheduled to run from November 2009 to January 2010, but was canceled after public controversy regarding West's interruption of Taylor Swift's Best Female Video speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Shortly after the cancellation, Gaga embarked on her own tour, The Monster Ball tour, while West went on to make his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, released on November 22, 2010.
Background
On June 10, 2009, Kanye West appeared on The View and announced he would be touring with Gaga but emphasized she would not be an opening act “She’s talented and so incredible that she’s not an opening act,” West said. “We’re doing it together, with no opening act.” Earlier that spring, Gaga had hinted at plans for a larger North American tour, including Canada, during an interview with the Edmonton Sun in May of 2009. She described the upcoming show as “much bigger” than her previous The Fame Ball tour, a reference to the then-unrevealed Fame Kills.
Prior to becoming Creative Director of the Haus of Gaga, Matthew Williams had worked with Kanye West since 2007. Though unconfirmed, he may have been the initial connection between the two artists. Gaga was first publicly seen with Kanye at DJ Reflex’s birthday party on March 11, 2009, alongside Kid Cudi, a frequent West collaborator. In late June 2009, Gaga performed a cover of Kanye’s song "Heartless", co-written by Kid Cudi, during a show, further linking her to West’s creative circle.
Development
Gaga said the shows would feature an unusual stage that extended from one end of the arena floor to the other. "The stage is called a traverse," she said. "It's something that we designed together. Instead of being on just one end of the arena, the stage traverses the entire arena. It's not really in-the-round; it's more of a runway. ... [It extends] from one end to the other so the audience can see everywhere from 360, but it's like a rectangular runway shape.
- "We're on each end of the stage, and I want to get to where Kanye is, which is 'the fame,' " she continued. "He wants to get where I am, which is home and humble beginnings. For the whole show, we are battling each other [for their positions]. It's been a really incredible creative experience.
- "We did not do this tour for each other," she added. "We did this tour for everybody else. We wanted to do something that no one has ever seen. We wanted our fans to feel like we were doing something special and we wanted to merge two groups of fans — two different [groups of] music lovers into one room. He's going to play every Kanye West hit, which is a lot, one after the other. I'm going to play all my hit records which, knock on wood, I had a lot this year. And then I'm going to play all my new music and then do a ton of duets."
Promotion
A photograph from the unreleased Purple magazine photoshoot in 2009.
A promotional video for the tour was released in September 2009. West posted the video on his blog accompanied by the text, "What happened to all the rock stars? The Fame killed them!" The 30-second clip features slow-motion footage of a topless Gaga being carried by a man presumed to be West. The footage of the video came from the photo shoot they did together with David LaChapelle. Monsters sounds are played during the video and Kanye says "Fame Kills" at the end of it.
A photoshoot to promote the tour was taken by photographer Hanna Liden at Milk Studios but was never released.
Cancellation
2009 Billboard Women in Music red carpet.
On October 1, 2009, the tour’s promoter, Live Nation, released an official statement announcing that Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga was canceled. Gaga’s choreographer, Laurieann Gibson, tweeted that the decision was due to “creative differences,” though she did not elaborate further.
- “It was a mutual decision,” Gaga said the following day at the Billboard Women in Music event on October 2, 2009, where she received the 2009 Rising Star Award. “Kanye’s going to take some time off. But the good news is that I’m going on tour in a few weeks.”
Many of the crew originally hired for Fame Kills were retained for The Monster Ball, including: creative director Willo Perron, musical director Jeff Bhasker, lighting director Ethan Weber, set designer Es Devlin and costume designer Zaldy. Although Gaga stated that she was inspired by the things she and Kanye were doing with the Fame Kills tour, she concluded, "...I made a decision based on integrity not to use any of the things that we had designed together." Later, she agreed that it was "the great lost tour". According to concert industry sources, ticket sales were uneven across markets, and the fallout from Kanye’s 2009 MTV VMA incident may have contributed to the cancellation. Although unconfirmed, Cudi later became an opening act for the first leg of The Monster Ball, possibly due to his prior involvement or association with the canceled Fame Kills tour.
In late September 2009, during interviews with Las Vegas radio station KLUC and San Diego’s Star 94, Gaga revealed plans to launch her own headlining tour just weeks after Fame Kills was set to conclude.
- “When I come back from my world tour, I’m doing another world tour after this, which is going to be in March of next year,” she said.
Those plans later shifted to mid-February 2010, when Gaga debuted the revamped and world tour version of The Monster Ball. The original version premiered in November 2009, just seventeen days after the originally planned launch of Fame Kills, and was later reimagined with a new storyline and staging for the 2010 leg.
Scheduled shows
Announcement and delay
West and Gaga at the 2009 VMAs.
The Fame Kills tour dates were originally slated to be announced on September 14, 2009, but following Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV VMAs on September 13, the announcement was delayed. On September 18, Live Nation officially released the schedule: 34 cities, beginning November 10 at the US Airways Center in Phoenix, AZ, and concluding January 24 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX. Earlier that week, an itinerary began circulating online (Rolling Stone, Sept 15), but Gaga’s spokesperson clarified to the Los Angeles Times that the routing was either incomplete or incorrect. A September 11 post on Gaga’s website had prematurely stated that presales would begin that week, with listings briefly appearing before being removed without explanation.
A spokesperson from Interscope Geffen A&M Records later confirmed that last-minute date changes caused the delay. Notable adjustments included:
- Moving the November 11 show from "Vegas Arena" to San Diego Sports Arena
- Adding December 23 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH
- Removing January 19 at New Orleans Arena, creating a four-day gap
Presales began on September 22 for Kanye’s fan club, followed by Citi cardmember access on September 24 via Citi’s Private Pass Program. Public onsales launched September 25, with ticketing info available on FameKills.com.
Tour dates
The Fame Kills tour was designed as Gaga’s first arena tour, co-headlining with Kanye West. The itinerary covered:
- 15 U.S. states, including California (5 shows) and Texas (3 shows)
- 5 Canadian provinces, with Alberta and Ontario each hosting 2 shows
The pacing was intense, with minimal downtime. The longest planned break was five days between San Jose, CA (Nov 19) and Vancouver, BC (Nov 24). Another gap of four days occurred between Toronto (Nov 28) and Denver, CO (Dec 2). Most other dates were spaced just one or two days apart, underscoring the tour’s demanding logistics. Many of Gaga’s broadcast performances in late 2009 were scheduled on tour off-days, suggesting a tightly coordinated promotional strategy..
| Date | Venue | City | 
|
|---|---|---|---|
| November 10, 2009 | US Airways Center | Phoenix, AZ | 
|
| November 11, 2009 | San Diego Sports Arena | San Diego, CA | |
| November 13, 2009 | Mandalay Bay Events Center | Las Vegas, NV | |
| November 15, 2009 | Honda Center | Anaheim, CA | |
| November 16, 2009 | Staples Center | Los Angeles, CA | |
| November 18, 2009 | ARCO Arena | Sacramento, CA | |
| November 19, 2009 | HP Pavilion | San Jose, CA | |
| November 24, 2009 | General Motors Place | Vancouver, BC | 
|
| November 26, 2009 | Pengrowth Saddledome | Calgary, AB | |
| November 28, 2009 | Rexall Place | Edmonton, AB | |
| November 29, 2009 | Credit Union Centre | Saskatoon, SK | |
| December 2, 2009 | Pepsi Center | Denver, CO |
|
| December 4, 2009 | Scottrade Center | St. Louis, MO | |
| December 9, 2009 | American Airlines Arena | Miami, FL | |
| December 11, 2009 | Philips Arena | Atlanta, GA | |
| December 12, 2009 | Greensboro Coliseum | Greensboro, NC | |
| December 13, 2009 | Scope Arena | Norfolk, VA | |
| December 16, 2009 | DCU Center | Worcester, MA | |
| December 18, 2009 | Wachovia Center | Philadelphia, PA | |
| December 19, 2009 | 1st Mariner Arena | Baltimore, MD | |
| December 20, 2009 | HSBC Arena | Buffalo, NY | |
| December 22, 2009 | IZOD Center | East Rutherford, NJ | |
| December 23, 2009 | Quicken Loans Arena | Cleveland, OH | |
| December 26, 2009 | XL Center | Hartford, CT | |
| December 30, 2009 | Verizon Center | Washington, D.C. | |
| January 3, 2010 | Nassau Coliseum | Uniondale, NY | |
| January 6, 2010 | Air Canada Centre | Toronto, ON |
|
| January 8, 2010 | Scotiabank Place | Ottawa, ON | |
| January 11, 2010 | Bell Centre | Montreal, QC | |
| January 14, 2010 | The Palace of Auburn Hills | Auburn Hills, MI |
|
| January 16, 2010 | United Center | Chicago, IL | |
| January 21, 2010 | AT&T Center | San Antonio, TX | |
| January 22, 2010 | Toyota Center | Houston, TX | |
| January 24, 2010 | American Airlines Center | Dallas, TX |
Trivia
- Out of the 34 planned venues, Gaga had previously performed at 9 of them as an opening act for the New Kids on the Block: Live tour in 2008.
- Gaga later returned to 24 of the 34 scheduled venues during The Monster Ball tour (2009–2011).
- Not included: Pengrowth Saddledome and Philips Arena, which were only part of artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball in 2014.
- Gaga has never performed at the following 6 venues from the original Fame Kills routing: Credit Union Centre (Saskatoon, SK), Greensboro Coliseum (Greensboro, NC), Scope Arena (Norfolk, VA), DCU Center (Worcester, MA), 1st Mariner Arena (Baltimore, MD) and IZOD Center (East Rutherford, NJ)
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