Even a bomb threat won’t stop Lil Nas X from walking the red carpet.
The world premiere of the rapper’s documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 9, faced an unexpected speed bump. It was delayed by 30 minutes due to a bomb threat, Us Weekly can confirm.
Documentary co-directors Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel as well as film editor Andrew Morrow were the first to arrive at the event. But when Lil Nas X (born Montero Lamar Hill) arrived, he was told to hold off on walking the red carpet at the Roy Thomson Hall venue.
“Earlier this evening, we were made aware by the Toronto Police Service of an investigation in the vicinity of the red carpet for the Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero screening,” said Judy Lung, TIFF’s VP of Public Relations & Communications, in a statement to Us. “Our standard security measures remained in place during this time and the screening commenced with a slight delay. To our knowledge, this was a general threat and not directed at the film or the artist.”
Variety was the first to report the news.
The premiere began after the delay without incident. The “Old Town Road” singer was joined by his family on the red carpet and appeared shirtless, with a black jacket and black pants. He took to Instagram to share several snapshots of the night, captioning the post “long live.”
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero follows the 24-year-old on his Long Live Montero tour. The “Industry Baby” singer announced his debut world tour in an Instagram post on April 28, 2022, and he kicked off the concert series in Detroit the following September.
According to the TIFF website, the documentary “offers a joyous immersion in the world of a game-changing artist and the fans who’ve joined him in that change. 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.”
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero is scheduled for additional public screenings at TIFF this week. There is not yet a release date for the documentary.
