Throughout almost six decades of Super Bowl history, halftime shows have typically been anodyne affairs, chances for football fans to load up their snack plates. But some have broken ground. When Ella Fitzgerald joined Carol Channing onstage at the 1972 event — in a now-lost set honoring Louis Armstrong — it was a watershed for Black women, jazz and celebrity bookings. The first rock ’n’ roll performer didn’t arrive until 1988, when Chubby Checker twisted.
New Kids on the Block paved the way for contemporary radio pop at halftime with their 1991 performance. (Though it was bumped from the live telecast for news from the Persian Gulf War.) Michael Jackson set a new royal standard two years later. After the National Football League teamed up with Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation, hip-hop finally took the spotlight in 2022, led by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar.
While many of the annual spectacles have been memorable for more than the music — think Katy Perry’s “Left Shark,” Rihanna’s pregnancy reveal, even Prince’s suggestive guitar silhouette — a few sparked major conversations about politics, culture or propriety.
This year’s performance by Bad Bunny will be the first all-Spanish-language halftime set; President Trump called it “a terrible choice” and the conservative group Turning Point USA will present its own counterprogramming concert.
Here are five previous Super Bowl halftime shows that created a meaningful stir.
2004: Janet Jackson Gets Exposed
The reliable chart-topper Janet Jackson had a host of guests for her halftime show, including Nelly, Diddy and Kid Rock. But most people remember just one: Justin Timberlake, who joined her for his 2002 smash “Rock Your Body.” When the former ’N Sync star delivered the final line about having his dance partner “naked by the end of this song,” he removed part of Jackson’s bustier, leaving her right breast exposed for a fleeting instant.
The term “wardrobe malfunction” was born, a national outcry ensued and Jackson was mysteriously absent from the 2024 Grammys. The so-called “Nipplegate” incident has continued to loom, to dramatically varying degrees, over Jackson, Timberlake and the world’s biggest stage.
2012: M.I.A. Makes an Obscene Gesture
In the years after the Jackson backlash, the Super Bowl stage was dominated by rock acts. Madonna finally brought pop back with a career-spanning set that critics largely regarded as toeing a difficult line between old and new, salaciousness and safety. Her newest song of the night, the peppy hand-clapper “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” featured two younger stars, Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., who like Madonna were known to push boundaries.
On the field in Indianapolis, the rapper-singers reprised their Toni Basil-style cheerleader looks from the song’s video. On the studio version, M.I.A.’s verse ends with an expletive indicating that she doesn’t have a care. At the Super Bowl, she stopped a half-syllable short of the obscenity, but extended her middle finger at the camera. Apologies — and litigation — followed, with the N.F.L. reportedly seeking $16.6 million from M.I.A. for her “offensive gesture” before the two sides reached a confidential settlement.
2016: Beyoncé Raises a Fist in Celebration of Blackness
After making appearances at the Super Bowl in 2004 and 2013, Beyoncé returned in 2016 to support the headliners, Coldplay, with a strong statement of her own. A day before the game, Beyoncé surprise-released a new song and video, “Formation,” as the first taste of what would be her sixth studio album, “Lemonade.” With elements of Houston trap and New Orleans bounce, the track revels in the singer’s identity as a successful Black woman from the American South, while the video, which involves a sinking police car, echoes themes from the Black Lives Matter movement.
At halftime, in between songs from Coldplay and fellow guest Bruno Mars, Beyoncé’s staging was no less provocative, particularly when she and her beret-wearing dancers raised their fists in the air, with echoes of the Black Panthers. Protests erupted, inspiring the artist to wink back with “Boycott Beyoncé” tour merch, while the “Formation” video went on to win a Grammy and “Lemonade,” like every Beyoncé solo studio album before and since, debuted at No. 1.
2020: Jennifer Lopez and Shakira Sing With Children in Cages
The Super Bowl show in Miami put on by Jennifer Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Shakira, who is Colombian, was an energetic celebration of Latin pride, with appearances by Bad Bunny and the Colombian reggaeton sensation J Balvin. For Lopez’s 1999 staple “Let’s Get Loud,” a choir of children — including one of her own, Emme Maribel Muñiz — appeared in lighted orbs reminiscent of cages, which many interpreted as a comment on the Trump administration’s immigration practices.
Lopez, draped in a coat with a Puerto Rican flag design, then segued into “Born in the U.S.A.,” covering Bruce Springsteen. While conservative criticism of the show tended to take aim at the artists’ choreography and attire, Lopez later said that the N.F.L. had tried to remove the cages from the performance.
2022: Eminem Takes a Knee
In the 2016 football season, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police killings of Black people. The action roiled the league, and had lasting reverberations. When rap got its turn in the spotlight six years later, Eminem, the only white performer in the lineup, knelt and held his head in an apparent homage.
An N.F.L. spokesperson said afterward that the league had been “aware” of Eminem’s planned move. Despite some conservative uproar, the F.C.C. received an unusually low volume of complaints about the show, and The New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica wrote, “Is it still protest if it’s been signed off on and approved?”
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