Rihanna has opened up about her choice to take on the coveted role at the Super Bowl LVII halftime show, where she will perform. She made a decision when she was three months postpartum that she later regretted. However, the Barbados native, who welcomed her first kid, a darling baby boy with A$AP Rocky, in May last year, has revealed how parenthood motivated her to go big for her first public performance in seven years.
“It feels like it could have only been now,” Rihanna remarked in an interview with Apple Music in Arizona ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. “I was like, “You sure?” when I initially received the call to do it again this year. Should I be making huge decisions like this three months after giving birth? as though I would come to regret it.”
Rihanna was requested to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show, but she was one of several celebrities who skipped the event to support former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s demonstrations against police brutality and social injustices.
“I’m three months postpartum, like should I be making major decisions like this right now?”
Rihanna shared her doubts when she first got the call to headline the Super Bowl LVII halftime show, just months after having her first child.https://t.co/13Z3it0bED pic.twitter.com/RuiniQleD7
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 9, 2023
Several years later, Rihanna says her highly anticipated Sunday concert is about more than simply her comeback to the stage; it’s about representation. And it’s a gig she feels particularly equipped for now that she’s a mother who believes she can “take on the world.”
“There’s something that just happens when you become a parent when you feel like you can take on the world when you feel like you can do anything,” the creator of Savage X Fenty said in the same interview. “The Super Bowl is one of the largest venues in the world, so as daunting as it was—since I haven’t been on stage in seven years—there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all, and it’s necessary for me to do it this year. “It’s crucial for representation, and my son needs to witness that.”
While Rihanna just released “Lift Me Up,” a new song she co-wrote for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, she has not played live since her 2016 Anti-World Tour. But she’s been keeping herself busy since then, managing her thriving lingerie and cosmetics businesses, playing in films like Ocean’s 8, and, of course, being a mom to her now 8-month-old baby. So, what might we anticipate from the icon on Sunday? A “celebration” of her career’s work, as she phrased it.
“There’s a lot of planning and a lot of moving elements,” Rihanna said of her impending 13-minute live performance on Apple Music. “It’s going to be the finest celebration of my collection we could have put together.”