POP MUSIC LEGEND Rihanna will play the Halftime Show at this season’s Super Bowl, which will take place at State Farm Stadium, Arizona on 12 February.
The Barbadian singer, actress and entrepreneur confirmed the news on Sunday evening, posting an image of an American football to her social media accounts which was subsequently shared by the NFL’s official channels.
Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, is the second biggest-selling female artist of all time, after Madonna, and is estimated to have sold between 230 million and 250 million records since she released her debut album, Music of the Sun, in 2005.
She has earned 14 number-one singles and 31 top 10s in the US, as well as 30 top-10 entries in the UK charts. Her awards include nine Grammys, 13 American Music Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, six Guinness World Records, and the NAACP’s President’s Award.
Rihanna, 34, recently welcomed her first child, a son, with her partner Rakim Mayers, better known as the hip-hop artist A$AP Rocky.
— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 25, 2022
The ‘Umbrella’ star’s decision to take on the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which this season will be sponsored by Apple Music, is a departure from her call to decline the invitation for the 2019 fixture on account of the NFL’s treatment of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
“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 organisation 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, however, has settled his grievance case against the NFL since Rihanna was last asked to perform in the league’s showpiece, with the league’s commissioner Roger Goodell admitting ahead of last year’s Super Bowl that the organisation has done a “poor job” in handling issues of racial discrimination.
The 2022 Halftime Show, a celebration of hip-hop culture, earned significant acclaim and saw performers Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent win an Emmy award for Outstanding Variety Special.
