Rihanna has revealed why, after a decade of rejections and repeatedly telling them ‘no’, she finally said yes to the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
"For this Super Bowl I was approached a few weeks before [the announcement] and I kind of kept putting off my answer," she revealed to British Vogue.
Of course, she eventually said yes. But her pregnant pause - in more ways than one - came for a very good reason.
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In 2018, she turned down the NFL’s invitation to perform in solidarity with former San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick earned himself global fame - or notoriety, depending on your point of view - for taking a knee at a 2016 football game during the US national anthem.
Kaepernick went on to become an international icon of protest against racial injustice.
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But for Rihanna, it was a Halftime Show too heavy with meaning.
In 2019, she told US Vogue: "I just couldn’t be a sellout.
"I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people."
She added: "I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within [the NFL] that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way."
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But time changes things, and while there is 'still a lot of mending to be done', as Rihanna told British Vogue, it was time to 'break those doors' and keep them open.
"[Now we] and representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level,” she said.
Pointing to last year's Halftime lineup of Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar, she felt they set things up for her to continue onward.
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"Representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message," she said.
She said the Super Bowl asked her every year to headline the Halftime Show and when she was asked if that has been over the course of 10 years, she didn't say no.
But RiRi revealed that motherhood has changed her.
She added: "Of course, raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life."
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Little did she know though, nine months after her son was born, she would be on the Super Bowl stage while pregnant for the second time.
"[Motherhood] is this knowing that you can do anything, even things that seem the craziest, like, 'I’m going to say yes to the Super Bowl in the middle of postpartum'," she said.
"But you’re geeked on a challenge like that because you know what your body just did. You feel this sense of ‘Nothing is impossible'."
And she did it. Not only postpartum, but pregnant again.
Talk about nought to 60 in seconds.
She added, in the interview captured just before Super Bowl Sunday: "I have not been on stage in seven years. Seven years! From zero to Super Bowl? That’s mental."
Topics: Music, Super Bowl, Rihanna, Celebrity, Entertainment
Rachel Lang