It was certainly an epic night in the career of Rihanna. The 34-year-old singer and fashionista probably played to her biggest audience ever by performing for the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, and she generated further buzz by revealing she’s pregnant with her second child with A$AP Rocky, with a baby bump visible beneath her dramatic all-red ensemble.
But for all the extravaganza, Rihanna won’t be paid a cent, according to Esquire and the Daily Mail.
It’s customary for Super Bowl halftime stars to perform for free. Per NFL policy, the league covers all costs related to the production of the halftime show — which can be pretty sizable. It’s estimated that the 2020 show put on by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira cost $13 million, a figure that included pay for up to 3,000 people involved in pulling off the show and all of its technical elements, including the audio equipment and the collapsible, 38-part stage, Esquire said.
Meanwhile, the talent doesn’t take home a paycheck, though the NFL also foots the bill for their travel expenses.
As reported, Rihanna’s decision to headline the halftime show came as a surprise, in that she’s mostly been on a musical hiatus since 2016 when she dropped her album “Anti,” Esquire said.
“I can’t believe I even said yes,” the Grammy winner said in an interview with “Entertainment Tonight.” “It was one of those things that even when I announced it, I was like, ‘OK, I can’t take it back. Now it’s like, final.’ ” She referred to her first child with A$AP Rocky, who was born in May 2022, when she said, “If I’m going to leave my baby, I’m going to leave my baby for something special.”
One thing that makes the Super Bowl halftime show special for performers is that they can enjoy major financial benefits that more than make up for a huge paycheck.
When Justin Timberlake performed in 2018, his music sales rose 534 percent that same day, while Lady Gaga saw her album and singles sales jump 1,000 percent for her 2017 set, Esquire said. For her sizzling performance with Shakira, Lopez gained 2.3 million new followers across her social media platforms, the Daily Mail reported.
For Rihanna, performing at the Super Bowl may serve another special purpose in that it gives her an opportunity to dive back into music, Esquire said. Her fans now will be left to hope that at some point they’ll start to hear more about that ninth album that’s reportedly been in the works.
