PHOENIX (AFP) — Four years after saying she had refused to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show in protest over race issues, Rihanna said she will use her performance during Sunday’s National Football League title game to represent immigrants and black women.
The nine-times Grammy award-winning singer will perform during the interval of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles in what is usually the most-watched broadcast of the year on US television.
The Barbados-born singer, who gave birth to a son in May, has not performed a live show in seven years.
“The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world. 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,” she told a media presentation on Thursday.
“It’s important for me to do this, this year. It’s important for representation. It’s important for my son to see this.”
In 2019, she said she had rejected the opportunity from the NFL in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who had been protesting against racism and police violence by taking a knee.
Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL team owners, later withdrawn after a settlement, arguing they had colluded to keep him out of the league after he had been unable to find a team.
Rihanna said in an interview with Vogue in 2019 that she “couldn’t be a sellout, I couldn’t be an enabler” and said there were things within the NFL “that I do not agree with at all.”