The NFL, Rihanna, Roc Nation and new halftime show sponsor Apple Music all announced Saturday that the singer would lead the most high-profile 15-minute performance in music on Feb. 12, 2023 at State Farm Stadium.
The Super Bowl 57 halftime show would mark Rihanna’s first public performance in over five years, as the singer last appeared onstage at the 2018 Grammy Awards to perform “Wild Thoughts” with DJ Khaled.
Rihanna twice previously turned down the Super Bowl halftime shows, in 2018 and 2019, in solidarity with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was all but blacklisted from the NFL after taking a knee for the National Anthem in protest of racial injustice and police brutality during the 2016 season.
On Friday, PEOPLE confirmed that despite rumors and a report insinuating otherwise, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift would not be leading the Super Bowl LVII halftime show. Some Swifites quickly ran with reports, questioning whether Swift — who has starred in past commercials for Apple Music — would be playing the show, which will be replacing Pepsi with Apple Music as next year's sponsor.
Rihanna has the right amount of career-defining hits to take on the evening. The singer and businesswoman has a total of 14 No. 1 songs on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as 31 top 10 tracks in general. Her first No. 1, "SOS," hit the top of the charts in 2006, while her most recent chart-topper "Work" did the same a decade later.
Notably, the superstar hasn't released a new album in six years since the drop of her fan-beloved eighth studio album, Anti, which also spawned hits like "Kiss It Better," "Needed Me," and "Love on the Brain." In the years since, Rihanna has become the youngest self-made billionaire woman in the country, thanks to her continued successes with her Fenty Beauty cosmetics line and her Savage x Fenty lingerie line, and saw the birth of her first child with A$AP Rocky in 2022.
The Super Bowl LVII halftime show sponsorship from Apple Music is part of a multi-year deal with the NFL, the league announced earlier this week. Pepsi had previously announced that it would no longer be returning as a sponsor following its initial sponsorship at the 2007 show starring Prince and an eventual ten-year agreement that began in 2013.
Tire manufacturer Bridgestone also sponsored the show for the five years in between 2007 and 2013. The halftime show previously handed out sponsorships as a one-off yearly agreement with advertisers such as Coca-Cola and Oscar Mayer before that.
"We are proud to welcome Apple Music to the NFL family as our new partner for the iconic Super Bowl Halftime Show," Nana-Yaw Asamoah, SVP of Partner Strategy for the NFL, shared in a release. "We couldn't think of a more appropriate partner for the world's most-watched musical performance than Apple Music, a service that entertains, inspires and motivates millions of people around the world through the intersection of music and technology."
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