Rihanna set to make return in Super Bowl Halftime Show
To Rihanna, the timing of her long-awaited return to the stage is perfect.
It’s been seven years since Rihanna, a nine-time Grammy-winning recording artist, gave a live performance. But the pop icon is back, headlining the halftime show of Super Bowl 57 on Sunday night.
“It feels like it could have only been now,” she said Thursday during a news conference ahead of the championship game between the Eagles and Chiefs. “When I first got the call again to do it this year, I was like, ‘You sure?’ I’m three months postpartum, should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this. But when you become a mom, there’s just something that happens where you feel like you can take on the world, you can do anything, and the Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world.”
That Rihanna is even the next artist to grace the stage at halftime of sports’ biggest event may have been a surprise. She last released an album in 2016 with the platinum-selling “Anti.” In May, she and rapper A$AP Rocky welcomed their first child. And it was believed that she was at odds with the NFL after declining to
perform in 2019 in a show of support for Colin Kaepernick, who kneeled during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Kaepernick later sued the league for collusion before reaching a settlement.
But Rihanna is signed to Jay Z’s label Roc Nation, which has partnered with the NFL to help choose performers for league events. In September, the NFL revealed Rihanna, born Robyn Rihanna Fenty, would headline the halftime show.
The Barbados-born Rihanna, who last performed publicly at the Grammy Awards in 2018, said representation for
immigrants and Black women is important to her and that she embraces the challenge of putting together a “jam-packed” show, likening it to how she manages her Fenty empire, which includes cosmetics and lingerie.
“At the end of the day, if it flops or it flies, my name has to stand by that. And so I really get involved with every aspect of anything I do,” she said.
Cutting a discography that includes 14 No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits for a 13-minute set was the biggest challenge, she said. But she added the performance will be a “celebration of my catalog,” one that has jumped between genres in her
decade-plus-long career.
“You’re going to see on Sunday,” she said. “From the time it starts, it just never ends until the very last second.”
Before kickoff, country music star Chris Stapleton will sing the national anthem, while R&B legend Babyface will perform “America the Beautiful.” Actor-singer Sheryl Lee Ralph will also perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
MOSTERT ON TUA, FIRST YEAR IN MIAMI
Dolphins running Raheem Mostert, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent, said there were a lot of “positives” from Miami’s 2022 season and continued to back Tua Tagovailoa as the team’s future at quarterback.
“When we went into that Buffalo game in the playoffs, we already knew that our backs were against the wall,” Mostert said Thursday in a interview with SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio in Phoenix. “But we were still able to get close to having the job done. Unfortunately we weren’t able to move on to the next round because we had a lot injuries and everything like that. But in the grand scheme of things, it was definitely a lot of positives for the team and moving forward, we know what we got to do.”
The Dolphins made the playoffs for the first time since 2016 but were eliminated by the Bills in the wild-card round. Mostert and Tagovailoa did not play in the postseason game because of injuries.
“We’ve got to tighten up our offense a little bit more,” said Mostert, who led the team in rushing. “We’ve got to make calls in the offense and I know [coach] Mike [McDaniel] is going to get the job done. He’s a brilliant mind.”
Mostert said Tagovailoa, who missed five games because of concussions in 2022, is “definitely our guy moving forward. But he has to take care of himself.”
“Health is a major aspect in a players’ game,” he said. “But moving forward, I think Tua has done an unbelievable job . ... This year he definitely stepped up and he did his thing. It’s definitely going to be a bright future for him.”