Super Bowl
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TV producer Jesse Collins said there was some pressure following last year’s epic, Emmy-winning Super Bowl halftime show with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and more, but working with Rihanna made the process easy.
“She’s a lot of fun, very cool, never stressed. Just like, ‘All right, I’m going to go do this real quick.’ The pressure never got to her. She just was in it from day one, and really warm and let everybody have fun with it,” Collins told The Hollywood Reporter moments after Rihanna blazed the stage Sunday at the State Farm Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
“I think there’s always pressure with this show,” added Collins, who also produced The Weeknd’s 2021 halftime show. “You work so hard, six months for 13 minutes. [This was] an opportunity to work with a global superstar and her re-entry into music.”
Rihanna last performed live at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Before that, she was on the road promoting her album Anti, released in 2016.
Collins won the outstanding variety show (live) Emmy for last year’s halftime show alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Jay-Z, who also produced the spectacle. He has also produced the Grammy Awards, Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BET Awards, American Music Awards and more.
Rihanna’s performance — where she announced she was pregnant — was exciting and energetic, and she sang a number of her popular hits, including “Work,” “Diamonds” and “Umbrella.”
“I just feel great,” he said of Rihanna’s show. “I feel like her vision was executed. She shocked the world and the Navy’s [Rihanna’s fans] happy, and I’m just glad we got another great one in the books.
“We couldn’t have a massive stage on the field because of the grass and so they put it in the air and it was just brilliant,” he added. “It was just a great idea of where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Did anyone catch that Rihanna show when a football game broke out on either side of it? Wild stuff. But while the eyes of the world were on the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show, and the Eagles-Chiefs game that also happened alongside it, Billboard was backstage, on the field, on the concourses and under the stadium itself catching as much of the behind-the-scenes action as possible.
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3:15: Jordin Sparks — who is from Arizona, and whose father, Phillippi, played nine years in the NFL for the Giants and Cowboys — stopped by the field to tell Billboard about the Rihanna songs she was most looking forward to seeing (“Wild Thoughts,” “Run This Town,” “Umbrella”) and her new single, “Stadiums.” “I grew up around sports and football, my dad played, so I know how important it is to have a good song to pump you up before you come out in these moments,” she said.
3:25: Isiah Pacheco came over to help pump up the Chiefs fans by the sideline ahead of the game — and would have probably been glad to have seen Paul Rudd wearing a Pacheco jersey on the sidelines, chatting it up with a small crew of people before the game got underway.
5:05: Jay-Z is in the house, Lil Uzi Vert is here and GloRilla just walked past Gate 2 on the main concourse of the stadium — but Chiefs fans also gave a huge cheer to Tech N9ne, a son of Kansas City who has made it a point to build an industry around himself in his hometown rather than move to a more industry-connected hip-hop center, when he was shown on the big screen.
5:25: Any fan who could pull themselves away from the action on the field could walk outside to see some two hundred people milling around wearing puffy canvas suits with black plastic drapes over their heads and shoulders, waiting for the call — and trying to hang onto their drapes as the wind began whipping around Glendale.
5:54: At the two minute warning of the first half, the big group of dancers moved inside the stadium and down a back causeway to the field level, where everyone gathered around the one TV on the wall to try to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the field — and whether or not Patrick Mahomes’ ankle was injured as badly as it seemed at the time. The final two minutes of the game took almost 30 minutes of real time — minutes that were spent pacing in the depths of the stadium without much else to do before the main show began.
6:22: It is hard to overstate just how high in the air Rihanna and her dancers were and how relatively small those platforms were. From the field level, it was absolutely terrifying how high they were — and with the noise of the crowd and the fireworks, not to mention the show itself, absolutely terrifying. But that’s why Rihanna is one of the best to do it.
6:41: Press was very quickly ushered off the field following the performance — and encountered the troupe of marshmallow-clad dancers in the back causeway once again. The dancers, understandably relieved and jubilant that it was over, got a big ovation from everybody who walked past. The dancers also got to take the escalators back up — a small but well-earned perk, as everyone else trudged up the ramps.
8:08: As the inevitable Mahomes gut punch closes in, Eagles fans around the concourse completed a remarkable 26-minute turnaround: from questioning the existence of religion itself, to pure elation at the excellence of Jalen Hurts, to utter, depressing despair. As they filed out of the stadium minutes later, one fan was heard lamenting about the Eagles performance, “Rihanna was better than everyone on the field except for [tight end Dalls] Goedert.”
The 2023 Super Bowl will go down in history as the moment Rihanna revealed to the world that she was pregnant with her second child. Well, that and the whole thing with the football game. After an intense face-off between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Missouri team emerged victorious, winning the game at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., with a score of 38-35.
Of course, Rihanna was also a huge winner; her halftime show performance – the first one since Apple Music took over halftime show sponsorship from Pepsi – was full of a jaw-dropping parade of hits, from “Umbrella” to “Work” to “B-tch Better Have My Money” to “Diamonds.” And while she didn’t bring out any special guest performers, she performed the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show while carrying her second child, which reps confirmed before the game was over.
There were musical guests elsewhere throughout the broadcast, too. The increasing trend toward singers and rappers and rockers popping up in Super Bowl ads continued in 2023, with everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Missy Elliott to Sarah McLachlan to Diddy to Jennifer Lopez to Jack Harlow appearing in commercials for snacks, apps and (naturally) beer.
In her spot with Harlow and Elton John, Elliott – prior to the game – told Billboard they shared a lot of belly laughs doing the Doritos commercial. “[We] laughed as if we had met years back, especially when we had to keep doing those lines. It would be fun to do those bloopers of us doing the skit,” she said.
Below, check out our roundup of the 10 best Super Bowl commercials – not limited to ones featuring musicians, but certainly including a lot of musical icons.
As a rapper, Snoop Dogg has an incredibly busy lifestyle, and his footwear needs to be up to par. Enter footwear brand Skechers, which the rapper donned for the brand’s 2023 Super Bowl commercial on Sunday night (Feb. 12).
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“We’ve arrived, Mr. Dogg,” the rapper’s jet pilot says after touching down at an airport. “Time to slip in,” the 51-year-old says from the comfort of his seat on a private jet as he slips into a pair of royal-blue Skechers sneakers. A green lowrider car awaits the star, which promptly takes him to a packed concert — Snoop swaps his blue ensemble for a yellow one that consists of a matching pair of Skechers while performing his hits to cheering fans.
But the rapper’s duties don’t stop there: Snoop wears Skechers while performing a paper route, while doing a shift at the dog grooming salon, and even during a kid’s little league football game where he acts as coach. Snoop’s Skechers also make it all the way to the White House, where IRL friend Martha Stewart asks the question on everyone’s mind as he sits in the president’s seat. “Hey, Snoop, how do you do all this stuff?” she asks. “Skechers, baby, shoes made for all walks of life,” the rapper responds.
Snoop joins a list of music stars appearing in 2023 Super Bowl commercials, including Diddy’s Uber One ad (which co-stars Kelis, Montell Jordan, Donna Lewis and Haddaway); Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Donuts ad; Jack Harlow with Missy Elliott and Elton John in a Doritos ad; John Travolta in a T-Mobile ad; Sarah McLachlan in a Busch Light ad; and Metro Boomin in a Budweiser ad.
Watch Snoop’s 2023 Super Bowl commercial for Skechers in the video above.
Toward the end of her headlining Super Bowl 2023 Halftime Show on Sunday (Feb. 12), as “All of the Lights” began blasting from the State Farm Stadium’s speakers, Rihanna took a beat to fix her makeup, casually touching up with her own Fenty Beauty invisimatte instant setting and blotting powder. Once she finished, a backup dancer handed Rihanna her microphone back, and she returned to business as usual by dominating TV’s biggest stage in her first performance in more than five years, and her first one as a mother.
And during that 13-minute set, Rihanna reminded us that she’s still a powerhouse, no matter how long she’s kept fans waiting. The rather reclusive superstar has shown herself only a handful of times following her critically acclaimed 2016 album Anti: a verse on N.E.R.D.’s “Lemon” in 2017, another on PartyNextDoor’s “Believe It” in 2020. She had her first child with partner A$AP Rocky in 2022, and later that year, released her first single in years, “Lift Me Up” from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, which earned her best original song nods at the 2023 Golden Globes (where she stole the show even though she didn’t take home the trophy) and 2023 Academy Awards. For anyone who thought that Rihanna’s star had dimmed over these idle years, she proved all dem haters wrong during her halftime set.
She got in everyone’s face from the jump by starting her performance with “Bitch Better Have My Money” on a moving, elevated stage while wearing a red hot, curve-hugging outfit that hinted at a now-confirmed second pregnancy. Much like Beyoncé’s big reveal at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Rihanna knew how to make the most out of her 13 minutes of fame — even if it wasn’t the much-anticipated album news the Navy was expecting.
From there, she soared even higher with her hits seamlessly interwoven throughout her performance, including her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s “Only Girl (in the World),” “We Found Love,” “S&M,” “Rude Boy,” “Work” and more. Fireworks lit up the sky like “Diamonds” and rained down during “Umbrella,” while her collaborator Jay-Z — who also signed Rihanna to Def Jam and Roc Nation, made several hits with her over the years and rapped about her being one of three billionaires to come out of “Hov crib” on DJ Khaled’s “God Did” — presumably watched like a proud big brother from the stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Rihanna previously refused to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl Halftime Show to show solidarity with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his famous protest against racial injustice that was frowned upon by the NFL. But since Roc Nation became the NFL’s official live music entertainment strategist in 2019, Jay-Z had the best shot at getting Rihanna to give the gig another chance — and she did. Though fans may never know what really convinced her to headline this year’s halftime performance, one thing’s for certain: that b—h will certainly get her money.
Previous Super Bowl Halftime Show performers have found various ways to capitalize this moment and make it a significant footnote in their musical careers. Mary J. Blige released her 14th studio album, Good Morning Gorgeous, two days before her big gig alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem; the deluxe version of that album helped the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul earn six Grammy nominations for this year’s celebration. The year prior, The Weeknd released a greatest hits album, The Highlights, two days before his big gig; the project joined Dawn FM in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 with the former’s No. 8 debut on the chart. But Rihanna didn’t take a page from their handbooks, because she has to do things her own way, darling.
She utilized multiple branches of her Fenty empire to further push the narrative that during the halftime show was all about a “Rihanna concert interrupted by a football game, weird but whatever” (read one of the T-shirts from her Savage x Fenty game day apparel collection). One item from her Fenty Beauty Showstopp’r kit, which came in a stadium-friendly clear makeup bag, was a football-shaped makeup sponge. And with Valentine’s Day just around the corner — which calls for its own set of holiday-appropriate lingerie and makeup collections from Rih’s various name brands — music sales won’t be the only gains she sees after Sunday.
But by the end, Rihanna basked in the glory and applause from the very top, where she’d comfortably sat over the years, as the game’s real MVP. That Rihanna reign just won’t ever let up.
No, Dave Grohl is not Canadian — but according to his appearance in a new 2023 Super Bowl ad, there are a lot of things you didn’t know are Canadian.
On Sunday night (Feb. 12), Grohl appeared in Crown Royal’s 2023 Super Bowl commercial, where the Foo Fighters frontman took a moment to thank the country of Canada for all of the things it has contributed to society (including, you guessed it, Crown Royal).
With an electric guitar playing “O Canada” in the background, Grohl begins his thank you list with “legends of music,” as he pulls out vinyls from artists like Celine Dion, Joni Mitchell, Oscar Peterson and Rush. He then shouts-out legends of comedy like Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short and Seth Rogen, even thanking Canada for “heart throb” Michael Cera.
But Grohl is far from finished — for the next 30 seconds, the star lists off peanut butter, paint rollers, walkie-talkies, batteries, egg cartons, ironing boards, electric wheelchairs and even whoopee cushions as inventions courtesy of the Great White North.
One particular creation from Canada may comes as a surprise to fans — towards the end of the commercial, Grohl thanks the country for creating football, before a sound engineer behind him stops tweaking a track to say, “What? No way.” Grohl replies: “Yeah, look it up!” (We did — turns out “American football” was actually created in Montreal and introduced to America in 1874).
Check out the full ad and let Dave Grohl tell you about all of the other things that are actually Canadian above.
A new Super Bowl ad from Workday – the enterprise cloud for finance, HR and planning – is taking aim at those in corporate America who throw around the term “rock star” a little too loosely. And they’re getting a clutch assist from a coterie of real-life rock stars who are sick of the term “rock star” becoming as overused (and incorrectly used) as the word “literally.”
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“Hey corporate types, will you stop calling each other rock stars?” pleads KISS legend Paul Stanley at the commercial’s start. “Do you know what it takes to be a rock star?” Joan Jett demands. “I was on the road since I was 16,” she adds, tipping to her time in The Runaways.
“I’ve trashed hotel rooms in 43 countries!” brags Billy Idol. “I’ve done my fair share of bad things,” Ozzy Osbourne muses in the commercial. “Also, your fair share of bad things.”
While effortlessly ripping out an electric guitar solo, Gary Clark Jr. taunts, “Hey Liz in HR! Can you do this?”
The ad ends with the Ozzman himself getting a closer look at corporate life (“Hi, I’m Ozwald”) and Stanley busting into a corporate meeting room to stop someone from dropping the unearned moniker yet again.
Watch here.
Real-life rock stars were far from the only musicians appearing in the Super Bowl 2023 broadcast. There was also Diddy’s Uber One ad (which co-stars Kelis, Montell Jordan, Donna Lewis and Haddaway); Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Donuts ad; Jack Harlow with Missy Elliott and Elton John in a Doritos ad; John Travolta in a T-Mobile ad; Sarah McLachlan in a Busch Light ad; and Metro Boomin in a Budweiser ad.
Rihanna is pregnant with her second baby, a representative confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter following her 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, after fans speculated about her appearance.
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The singer was dressed in a curve-hugging red outfit and appeared to rub her belly during the airborne performance at the State Farm Arena in Glendale, Arizona, where she treated viewers to a medley of some of her biggest hits.
The new baby will have a big sibling, as Rihanna just welcomed her first child with A$AP Rocky in May.
Rihanna hinted in a pre-game interview with Nate Burleson that she had a surprise in store for fans, but she didn’t end up singing any new songs or bringing out any musical guests to the Super Bowl halftime show stage.
Her vague tease makes more sense now: “I’m thinking about bringing someone — I’m not sure,” she had said. “We’ll see.”
After her Super Bowl halftime set, Burleson retweeted a post that read, “So when #rihanna told @nateburleson there was gonna be a surprise guest at the halftime show, I’m betting that the BABY is the surprise guest #JustSayin #SuperBowl.” He left his own comment with the message: “Bingo!” with a bulls-eye emoji.
“When I first got the call to do it again this year, I was like, [hisses] ‘You sure?’ I’m three months postpartum,” RiRi had said about accepting the Super Bowl gig, during an Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show press conference earlier this week. “Should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this. But when you become a mom, there’s something that just happens where you feel like you can take on the world. The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world, so as scary as that was because I haven’t been on stage in seven years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all … It’s important for my son to see that.”
Musicians didn’t just appear in some of Super Bowl 2023’s flashiest commercials – they were also at the big game that pitted the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. After all, who wants to miss Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show? It’s the “Work” singer’s first public performance since she took the Grammy’s stage in 2018 alongside DJ Khaled for their collab “Wild Thought.”
Held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., some of the musicians on hand to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs, while others also performed. Sheryl Lee Ralph was among those who took the mic. The Abbott Elementary star made history when she performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” becoming the first Black performer to deliver what’s considered the Black national anthem on the field before kickoff. Chris Stapleton also left viewers in tears with his emotional performance of the national anthem.
Not surprisingly, Jay-Z – whom Billboard just named the greatest rapper of all time – was in attendance, with daughter Blue Ivy by his side. The 24-time Grammy winner is the co-founder of Roc Nation, the NFL’s live music entertainment partner. Roc Nation also manages Rihanna.
Besides those in the stands, many artists appeared in the highly anticipated commercials. Among them are Jennifer Lopez, who made a cameo in husband Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Donuts spot; Diddy in an Uber One commercial; Jack Harlow with Missy Elliott and Elton John in a Doritos ad; John Travolta in a T-Mobile ad; Sarah McLachlan in a Busch Light ad; Metro Boomin in a Budweiser ad; and more.
See the musicians who were at Super Bowl LVII below.
Jay-Z brought his favorite Super Bowl date along on Sunday night in Glendale, Ariz.: his daughter Blue Ivy.
The 11-year-old attended last year’s Super Bowl with her dad in Los Angeles and was also with him at 2020’s big game in Miami, and he brought his daughter to work again Sunday to watch the Roc Nation-curated halftime show, headlined by the Roc’s own Rihanna.
While fans might have expected that Jay would join Rih for their collaborations “Run This Town” or “Umbrella” — both of which Rihanna performed Sunday night — he was at least in the building for the monumental set, her first televised music performance in five years, since 2018’s Grammys.
The daddy-daughter duo wore coordinated all-black ‘fits, with Jay-Z repping Roc Nation with his black hoodie. Blue wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with Tupac Shakur’s face, with a black zip-up hoodie and black backward snapback. (In Billboard‘s just-unveiled 50 Greatest Rappers list, Blue’s dad holds the top spot, while Shakur is at No. 4.)
The NFL Twitter account shared the duo’s arrival on the field:
According to photos from the field, Jay and Blue hobnobbed with Lil Uzi Vert, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Hell’s Kitchen chef Gordon Ramsay.
Jay-Z won his first Primetime Emmy as an executive producer of year’s Super Bowl half time show, which was voted outstanding variety special (live). The celebration of hip-hop starred Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent. Jay was nominated in that same category the previous year as an executive producer of the halftime show starring The Weeknd.
Blue’s mom Beyoncé, meanwhile, has hit center field as a Super Bowl halftime performer twice: Once for her own headlining set in 2013 and once as a special guest during Super Bowl’s set in 2016. The real question: When will 5-year-old twins Sir and Rumi Carter get the invite to join their famous parents at the Big Game?
Fans caught photos of Jay being an excellent Instagram Dad and capturing some pics for Blue on the field: