Rihanna will headline the Super Bowl Halftime show. She announced the news by posting a photo of her tattooed arm holding an NFL football on her Instagram. The post was shared by her music label Roc Nation and she also posted it on her Twitter, which was retweeted by the NFL. Rihanna’s post was her first social media activity since giving birth to her first child in May.
Taylor Swift was rumored to be the headliner at the show and according to TMZ, was offered the spot, but Swift refused until she finishes re-recording her first six albums. The rights to those albums were purchased by a group that included record executive Scooter Braun. Super Bowl halftime performers predictably receive a sales boost after performing and it stands to reason Swift wants that boost to go towards songs she owns the rights to, not the Braun group.
According to the NFL, 208 million people tuned into the game last year, with 120 million watching the halftime show.
The decision to perform at the halftime show is a departure for Rihanna who was offered the spot at the 2019 Super Bowl but turned it down to support Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49er Quarterback who many believe was blackballed from the league because he kneeled during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
“I couldn’t dare do that,” Rihanna told Vogue in 2019. “For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”
Kaepernick remains without a job in the NFL but did get a tryout during the offseason.
Last year’s Super Bowl halftime show was headlined by Dr. Dre, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, and Snoop Dogg. It also included a surprise appearance by 50 Cent.
Rihanna, 34, released her last album “Anti” in 2016. According to Chart Masters, as of June 2021, Rihanna’s eight studio albums have sold 33.5 million copies and she has 14 #1 singles in the US, the second most for a woman of all time, trailing only Mariah Carey.