Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle’s Verzuz battle was a night full of Black girl magic. Not only did the pair have over 3.7 million total viewers tuned in across Instagram and Apple Music, they both racked up in streams following the event.
According to Billboard, the two musical legends broke their own personal streaming records in the days following the matchup. Their U.S. streaming totals more than doubled after their Sep. 13 Verzuz took place, making it the biggest streaming week of their careers.
The two ladies garnered a total of 4.1 million U.S. on-demand streams from Sep. 13-16. It was an increase of 119% compared to the four days leading up to the highly anticipated virtual event.
Knight received her biggest streams from her former No. 1 Hot 100 hit single, “Midnight Train to Georgia.” The tracked garnered over half a million streams from Sep. 13-16. “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” came in second with 215,000 plays.
LaBelle, on the other hand, received her highest streams with her 1984 hit, “If You Only Knew.” The track collected 344,000 plays from Sep. 13-16. Her Michael McDonald-assisted hit “On My Own” followed in second place with 237,000 streams.
Verzuz reported that the epic battle was watched by 612,000 concurrent viewers and a total of more than 2.5 million viewers. There were over 28 million in-stream likes and three billion impressions across social media outlets. It became the series’ second highest tweeted battle, following behind that of Monica and Brandy.
Additionally, there were 1.2 million viewers who tuned in from Apple Music and Apple TV. Gladys and LaBelle also dominated Twitter. They were the No. 1 trending topic on the popular social media app the night of Sep. 13.
Congrats to Knight and LaBelle! Check out their viewer numbers from Verzuz below.