Graham Breitenstein—a former dancer for Lady Gaga who participated in multiple tours—is telling his story in the hopes that he can save other young dancers some of the pain and hardship he’s experienced. In a series of Instagram videos posted over the weekend, Breitenstein alleges that he lost 70% of the hearing in his left ear while performing on Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball Tour—his first major professional gig—somewhere around 2010.
According to Breitenstein, during one show on the tour’s European leg, his left ear sounded like “the crowd was in my ear the whole time.” The dancers weren’t given in-ear monitors on the tour, he explained, so he was forced to experience the raw noise of the crowd night after night.
Breitenstein initially visited a “rock doc”—a doctor brought on tour for the primary purpose of doing whatever is needed to get a dancer back on stage rather than providing lasting medical treatment—who found fluid in his ear and gave him medication to treat it, but encouraged him to keep performing. (The tour apparently didn’t have any understudies.) When the problem persisted, Breitenstein asked to see a specialist but says he wasn’t given the opportunity to do so for approximately six weeks, during which he continued to perform.
When Breitenstein did finally see an appropriate doctor, he was told that he had permanently lost 70 percent of the hearing in his left ear. “It could have been reversed if it was treated in the first two weeks of the onset with a direct shot of steroids. But we were six weeks [in], and it was too late,” he shared. “I would have to live the rest of my life with 30 percent of hearing in my left ear and full hearing in my right ear. So to say that I was devastated... is an understatement.”
After receiving this diagnosis, Breitenstein turned to his friend Richy Jackson, Gaga’s assistant choreographer at the time, who told him not to say anything about his condition because he would get fired. (Jackson has been accused of fostering a toxic workplace by several other dancers he’s worked with, all of whom said Gaga knew nothing of the situation.) But while he managed to secure good in-ears (after some pushback) and continued to perform with Gaga on subsequent tours and even during her 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, Breitenstein says he was ridiculed by other dancers for his condition, who would liken him to Alma, a deaf character from Sister Act.
Breitenstein also had a negative experience with LiveNation, which he says immediately denied him worker’s comp and intimidated him with several lawyers when he asked for it, despite the fact that he had proof of his condition from his doctor. “I didn’t understand how I could be denied worker’s compensation when the writing was all there. [It was] on tour, on stage when this happened,” he said.
According to Breitenstein, Lady Gaga was never made aware of any of this. He does say he received a request for a one-on-one conversation when the singer switched management teams, to which he responded with a “six page” recounting of events, but nothing ever came of it.
As of this writing, neither Lady Gaga nor LiveNation have made a statement regarding Breitenstein’s claims. Neither party immediately responded to The A.V. Club’s requests for comment on this story.