Movies

Rihanna to headline Super Bowl 2023 halftime show

September 25, 2022

Rihanna will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February 2023.

The music icon, 34, shared an image on Instagram on Sunday hinting that she will be performing at the NFL event next year.

In the photo, what appears to be Rihanna’s hand is holding a soccer ball. The “Umbrella” singer captioned the post with a single point.

Roc Nation later posted the same image to their respective Instagram accounts, writing “Let’s Go” and tagging Rihanna and the NFL, while adding the hashtag “#SBLVII”.

Representatives for Rihanna, the NFL and Roc Nation did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

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“Rihanna is a generational talent, a woman from humble beginnings who exceeded expectations at every turn. A person born on the small island of Barbados who became one of the most prominent artists of all time. Self-taught in business and entertainment,” Jay-Z, who previously signed a deal with the NFL to lead the league’s musical entertainment, said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter.

“We are thrilled to welcome Rihanna to the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show stage,” NFL Chief Music Officer Seth Dudowsky added in his own statement, according to the outlet. “Rihanna is a one-of-a-kind performer who has been a cultural force throughout her career. We look forward to working with Rihanna, Roc Nation and Apple Music to bring fans another historic Halftime Show performance.”

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On Friday, PEOPLE confirmed that despite rumors and a report to the contrary, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift will not be leading the Super Bowl LVII halftime show. Some Swifites were quick to post reports wondering if Swift – who has starred in past ads for Apple Music – would star the show, which will replace Pepsi with Apple Music as next year’s sponsor.

Rihanna has the right amount of career-defining hits to tackle tonight. The singer and businesswoman has a total of 14 No. 1 songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as 31 top 10 tracks overall. His first No. 1, “SOS,” topped the charts in 2006, while his most recent, “Work,” did the same a decade later.

Notably, the superstar hasn’t released a new album in six years since releasing his fan-favorite eighth studio album, Anti, which also spawned hits like “Kiss It Better”, “Needed Me” and “Love on the Brain”. In the years since, Rihanna has become the nation’s youngest self-made billionaire woman, thanks to her continued success with her cosmetics line Fenty Beauty and her lingerie line Savage x Fenty, and saw the birth of her first child with A$ PA. Rocky in 2022.

Apple Music’s sponsorship of the Super Bowl LVII halftime show is part of a multi-year deal with the NFL, the league announced earlier this week. Pepsi previously announced it would no longer be returning as a sponsor after its initial sponsorship on the 2007 show starring Prince and an eventual ten-year deal that began in 2013.

Tire manufacturer Bridgestone also sponsored the show for the five years between 2007 and 2013. The halftime show previously offered sponsorships under a one-time annual deal with advertisers such as Coca-Cola and Oscar Mayer before that.

“We are proud to welcome Apple Music to the NFL family as a new partner for the iconic Super Bowl halftime show,” said Nana-Yaw Asamoah, senior vice president of partner strategy for the NFL, in a statement. “We couldn’t think of a more appropriate partner for the world’s most-watched musical performance than Apple Music, a service that entertains, inspires and motivates millions of people around the world through the intersection of music and of technology.”

Last year’s Super Bowl halftime team consisted of Dr. Dre, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, marking a special moment for Dre as the group went through tough times. decades of success. Dre, 56, said before the show that it would be “one of the biggest thrills of my career”.

The Super Bowl will begin on the evening of February 12 and will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.