Names and faces
■ Rihanna will take center stage at February’s Super Bowl halftime show. The singer will headline the 2023 Super Bowl, the NFL announced Sunday along with
Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Apple Music. Rihanna posted an Instagram photo of an arm outstretched holding an NFL football. “Rihanna is a generational talent, a woman of humble beginnings who has surpassed expectations at every turn,”
Jay-Z, founder of Roc Nation, which is executive producer of the show, said in a statement. The Super Bowl will take place Feb. 12 in Glendale, Ariz. Rihanna earlier said she turned down a similar opportunity for the 2019 Super Bowl out of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback whose national anthem protests sparked debate throughout football. With more than 250 million records sold worldwide, Rihanna ranks as one of the best-selling female artists ever.
■ At least three women have come forward claiming Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine sent flirty messages to them, with a model stating that messages led to a yearlong affair. Alanna Zabel, who said she was Levine’s instructor from 2007-10, wrote on Instagram that the performer sent her flirty text messages before he met Victoria’s Secret model Behati Prinsloo and married her in 2014. “He texted me saying ‘I want to spend the day with you naked,’” she wrote in a since-deleted Instagram stories post. “My jealous ex saw it and went into a rage.” She continued, “I assured my ex that I was sure it was … a mistake. I texted Adam to ask if that was the case. Adam didn’t reply … and my ex became violent, breaking my wrist.” When she told Levine what happened, according to the Sun, she said, he “ignored it, never apologized, removed me from the upcoming tour and iced me out.” In a TikTok video posted last week, model Sumner Stroh described flirty messages from Levine and said they were “having an affair” for about a year — an affair that she had ended. Stroh later told Page Six that the affair had been “physical,” something that Levine denied. “I used poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner. I did not have an affair, nevertheless, I crossed the line,” Levine wrote in a since-disappeared Instagram stories post.