Rihanna will be attending the Super Bowl this year.
The 34-year-old performer has confirmed that she will take the stage during the halftime show of the 2023 Super Bowl without uttering a single word. Rihanna published a photo to her Instagram account on September 25 that showed her hand holding a football.
The National Football League shared the same photograph on Twitter with the caption, “Let’s GO – @rihanna @rocnation #SBLVII @AppleMusic @NFLonFOX.” The record label that Rihanna is signed to, Roc Nation, shared the same photo with a nearly identical caption.
“Rihanna is a generational talent, a woman of humble beginnings who has surpassed expectations at every turn,” group founder Jay-Z said in a statement provided by Roc Nation, the NFL and new Super Bowl sponsor Apple Music. “A person born on the small island of Barbados who became one of the most prominent artists ever. Self-made in business and entertainment.”
TMZ has also received confirmation from sources within the NFL that Rihanna will be performing at the event. The website had previously cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter as saying that there have been multiple discussions between the NFL and Roc Nation regarding the possibility of the singer headlining the show. On February 12, 2023, the Super Bowl will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. This event is scheduled to take place.
This post comes three years after Rihanna told Vogue that she “absolutely” turned down a Super Bowl halftime show gig offer in support of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality. “I couldn’t dare do that,” the R&B singer said. “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.”
A significant shift in her life circumstances is also the catalyst for her about-face attitude. Rihanna became a mother in the summer of this year, when she and her boyfriend A$AP Rocky welcomed their first child together, a baby boy.
Since the 2018 Grammy Awards, the musician has not given a live performance of their music, and they have not released a new album or any new music in general in over two years. The last time they performed music onstage was at the Grammy Awards.
In recent years, the Fenty founder has focused on advancing her career in the beauty and fashion design industries, while also teasing the release of her ninth studio album. Also beginning in 2015, Rihanna has been collaborating with filmmaker Peter Berg on the production of a documentary about her life.
There was speculation that Taylor Swift could headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show in the days leading up to Rihanna’s post on Instagram. This was due to the fact that the NFL recently severed its long-standing partnership with Pepsi, and the singer had previous endorsement deals with Coca-Cola, which is Swift’s competitor. After some time passed, people began to report that the singer would not be performing at the gig.
