They will, they will rock the Oscars! Queen and Adam Lambert will perform at the 2019 awards ceremony on Sunday, February 24, the Academy announced on Monday, February 18.
“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? We welcome @QueenWillRock and @adamlambert to this year’s #Oscars,” the Academy Tweeted.
Lambert, 37, first performed with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor when he was a contestant on American Idol in 2009. The group went on tour as Queen + Adam Lambert in 2012, and again in from 2014 through 2018. Queen bass guitarist John Deacon does not tour with the group since his retirement in 1991 — the same year lead singer Freddie Mercury passed away due to complications from AIDS.
Bohemian Rhapsody, the 2018 film about Mercury’s life and the band’s rise to stardom, is nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (for Rami Malek, who plays Mercury in the flick), Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing. The film has already won two Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild award and more prizes this awards season.
Bette Midler also announced on Saturday, February 16, that she’ll be taking the Oscars stage, singing “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns, which is nominated for Best Song.
Jennifer Hudson, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will also sing tunes nominated for Best Song. Hudson, 37, will perform “I’ll Fight” from RBG, the documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg; Gaga, 32, and Cooper, 44, will duet on their hit “Shallow” from A Star is Born; and Welch, 51, and Rawlings will sing “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Kendrick Lamar and SZA are also nominated for their song “All The Stars” from Black Panther, though they have not yet confirmed whether they are performing.
The 91st Academy Awards air live on ABC on Sunday, February 24, at 8 p.m. ET.
