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| Photo Credit: AP. |
NEW YORK (AP) — Rihanna will take center stage at February’s Super Bowl halftime show.
The singer,
who declined to perform in the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show out of solidarity
with Colin Kaepernick, will headline the 2023 Super Bowl, the NFL announced
Sunday along with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Apple Music. Rihanna posted an image
on Instagram 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,” Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, whose Roc Nation is an executive producer
of the show, said in a statement. “A person born on the small island of
Barbados who became one of the most prominent artists ever. Self-made in
business and entertainment.”
The Super
Bowl will take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Feb. 12.
After years of Pepsi’s sponsorship, the upcoming halftime show will be
sponsored by Apple Music.
Rihanna
earlier said she turned down a similar opportunity for the 2019 Super Bowl that
was ultimately headlined by Maroon 5. At the time, many artists voiced support
for Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback whose 2016 national
anthem protests sparked debate throughout football.
“I couldn’t dare do that. For what?” Rihanna
told Vogue in 2019. “Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a
sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that
I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them
in any way,” she said of the league.
With sales
of more than 250 million records worldwide, Rihanna ranks as one of the
best-selling female artists ever. Her last album was 2016′s “Anti.”