Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Viewers Complain About Lip-Syncing Yet Again

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade brought some heat to the frigid streets of New York City Thursday, but some viewers couldn’t help but notice that many of their favorite performers didn’t appear to be singing live.

The 2025 parade — which featured performers like Ciara, Lil Jon, Jewel, Shaggy, and Busta Rhymes, among others — once again was subject to criticism about lip-syncing on social media, with one person writing, “Is bad lip syncing a pre-requisite to perform on the macy’s thanksgiving parade? I swear it gets worse every year, like they’re leaning into it for shits and giggles atp.”

Another user joked, “I’ve always loved watching singers attempt to lip sync their own music during the Macy’s parade,” while a third chimed in, “I’m not one to criticize the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade but I can definitely lip sync Shaggy’s songs better than Shaggy.”

Others acknowledged the technical difficulties of putting on a live performance mid-parade, but still pointed out that the lip-syncing didn’t appear to be executed very well. “I’m not going to knock them for lip syncing performances on the Macy’s Day Parade because I’m sure logistically they have to,” one person wrote. “But it doesn’t seem like the timing is matching up very well.” Another agreed, “I know these pop stars have to lip sync on the Macys parade on the floats but tbh some of them don’t do a very good job and you can tell.”

Previous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade performers have faced the same critiques, and have confirmed that many of the artists who take to the stage at the annual event don’t sing live for good reason.

After viewers criticized Rita Ora’s parade performance in 2018, fellow parade performer John Legend took to social media to clarify the realities of singing at such an event.

“Fun fact. We all have to lip sync on this parade because the floats don’t have the capacity to handle the sound requirements for a live performance. Hope y’all enjoyed it anyway,” Legend wrote at the time, adding, “Know that if you come to my shows, the vocals are 100% live!”

Ora later responded, “Fun fact @johnlegend thank you for clarifying what I was about to also tweet,” adding, “It’s annoying for us but anyway! All my shows are 100 percent live always have been! When you come to a ORA show get ready! Back to holidays! Have a good one guys!”