Madonna Starts Concert 2 Hours Late, Ends 40 Minutes Early After Anti-Smoking Rant

9:46 AM PST 12/21/2012 by Seth Abramovitch

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“Hello Santiago, thank you for your patience,” the singer tells the wet crowd of 36,000 when she finally takes the stage.

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After a caught-on-tape tirade in which she berated fans to stop smoking during her preshow sound check, Madonna's Chilean stop continued to be a low point for the MDNA Tour.

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According to I Love Chile, the 54-year-old pop diva took the stage of the open-air Estadio Nacional in Santiago at 11:30 p.m., two hours after the announced 9:30 set time.

The day had been a wet one, as a freak storm had befallen the South American city. Many of the concertgoers were holding up umbrellas during the technically ambitious and physically arduous performance.

“Hello, Santiago, thank you for your patience,” Madonna told the crowd of about 36,000.

But the singer pulled the plug on the concert at 12:45 a.m., 40 minutes shorter than performances elsewhere around the globe.

The result? Angry fans, some of whom took to Twitter to unload some of their frustrations.

"Fail! No more back to Chile … unprofessional and very disrespectful to her fans!” wrote one. "Gaga is the new Queen of Pop," zinged another.

The good news for Madonna: Her final MDNA Tour stop is Saturday night in Cordoba, Argentina. The tour was 2012's most financially successful, taking in close to $230 million in ticket sales.