It’s time to limber up, y’all: The NFL has confirmed pop icons and veritable dancing contortionists Jennifer Lopez and Shakira as the next artists to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which will kick off at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. Both performers broke the news in tandem on Twitter, swapping photos for a coordinated announcement that the NFL confirmed shortly thereafter. This will be the duo’s first time performing together.
The news arrives after weeks of speculation that was largely stoked by Lopez, who would kind of resort to a coy shrug and vaguely optimistic “we’ll see!” whenever asked about the subject. She also recently released a promotional video for the NFL on her Instagram, bolstering rumors further. There are still residual rumors about potentially adding artists to the lineup that heavily represent Miami—like a suited up Pitbull, for example—but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
This announcement contributes to an already stellar year for Lopez, who completed a successful world tour and generated lots of Oscar buzz for her stand-out performance in Hustlers. Her performance with Grammy winner Shakira will join a roster of historic Halftime headliners like Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Prince, Lady Gaga, and Adam Levine’s giant California tattoo.
[Via The Hollywood Reporter]
50 Comments
Another boring year then. Just bring out.a Prince hologram if this is the best you’ve got. The Shakira songs you know you heard a thousand times when they were relevant a decade ago and JLo doesn’t make interesting music period.“This announcement contributes to an already stellar year for Lopez, who completed a successful world tour and generated lots of Oscar buzz for her stand-out performance in Hustlers”She’ll perform a monologue?It is a good thing this is just an expensive concert in the middle of the worst sport or else it might actually matter. They’re probably the reason they dont give the United States that many chances at Olympic Openers
Still holding out hope that Weird Al will get the call one year, though now that Jay-Z’s in charge, I’ve got a way better chance hooking up with Mary Samsonite.
I don’t know what it says about me that I tried to think of halftime acts I WOULD watch, and Weird Al immediately sprang to mind first.
Parodying all the previous half-time acts?
I think the only way we get Weird Al at the Super Bowl is if he’s a surprise guest. Kind of a pity – he’s definitely got the catalog to do the halftime show. He could probably fill the halftime show with just his polka medleys.
All musical comedy halftime show including Garfunkel and Oates, Bo Burnham, Lonely Island, Weird Al, I don’t really like Jack Black, but maybe throw him in their too might be a good draw.
Huge fan of Shakira, not so much of J.lo. Not in as much that I actively dislike her, maybe just more indifferent. Although I respect that she’s probably the biggest latina superstar that we have. Still! Shakira is involved, and I can hear every 90’s/00’s latino/a babygay across the USA squealing in excitement over this news.
Nah, I have under v v v good authority from a not sexist commenter on here that only contemporary teenage girls like them. Who cares about people from the 90s???
Then Jlo can sing a Selena song and everyone will be torn about how that makes them feel.
Hey, I support it! Even though Selena’s real vocals were dubbed into the movie, J.lo eventually did do an homage to Selena at the Billboard awards some years ago and did a pretty good job!Also, I just wanted to sneak in this video of Kacey Musgraves covering “Como La Flor” This video made me fall in love with her even more. She’s not latina, but she IS Texan and even the guerito Texans love Selena. <3
I will not watch that, but I appreciated her Met Gala styling and her commitment to posing like a doll.
That’s a lot of shaking butt for one half time show.Can the nation survive?
in for wardrobe malfunctions?
I am concerned for people watching in assisted care facilities.
Lol. “Artists.” I have actually seen people refer to The Rock (even Takashi 6ix9ine) as an “artist.” Words mean things. Lip-syncing through a performance while shaking your a$$ does not an artist make.Prince. Now that’s an ARTIST.
Singing and dancing are artforms. Writing music is an artform. Acting is an artform. If you’re a practitioner of any of these things on a professional or committed basis, you’re an artist. You’re right that words mean things, and that’s what that word means.
Lol. You were given a lot of shiny 5th Place Medals in school, right?
I’m not sure what exactly you’re trying to achieve with your lame ad hominem there, but nope. Didn’t enter a lot of competitions when I was a kid, I was lazy. I still know that, whether you respect someone’s creative output or not, their act of creating an artistic object makes them an artist.
Lol.
Someone’s jealous because they didn’t get any medals in school.
Another useful word is “gatekeeper,” which amongst its many meanings include “something snobby assholes think they should be.”
singing, dancing, and acting, along with playing music, fashion, design are all considered the arts and the people that do them are artists. its called the english language dude, if youre going to speak it at least learn to use it.
You misspelled 2002. Easy mistake to make.
Their choices for halftime shows are generally awful and this is no different. You would think they would choose acts based upon the demographics of the people at the game and watching on tv. Instead they chose the acts to appeal to the one demographic with the lowest percentage watching the game, teen girls. It makes no sense. Do they actually believe that this is going to raise the ratings? It will not. Do they believe that this will get young girls to start watching football in the future? It won’t.
The only reason they’ve been doing these types of shows is because In Living Color’s halftime special stole pretty much all the viewers from the actual halftime show in 1992 (some ice skating thing). The next year, they brought in Michael Jackson for halftime.I don’t think there’s any competing programs during the game these days (Puppy Bowl and its kin notwithstanding), so the whole “go big” thing isn’t even that necessary.
Michael Jackson made sense (obviously he would not be a good choice now even if he was alive). He was a huge name, well liked by all demographics. The same cannot be said of this years show. They are big names, but are actively disliked by many and only popular with a few.
This past superbowl I watched mixed pairs curling on The Olympic Channel and loved it so much. I did not miss the superbowl at all and I hope there will be curling on the same time next year so I can enjoy watching that instead. I’ll see all the good commercials on the internet after anyway.
Do teen girls even give a shit about J Lo or Shakira in the year of our lord 2019? Teen boys maybe…
I don’t think anyone really cares about them, but if anyone is listening to their music its females. They were not, are not, and never will be popular with males regardless of how they look. And in the year 2019, being able to see a pretty woman dancing provocatively does not hold the same appeal as it did pre-internet.
Ohhhh. You’re just a misogynist. Okay
Do you ever get tired of faking being outraged?
They’re both massively popular with Latino audiences, regardless of gender and age.
While they (especially Shakira) are definitely much more popular among Latinos than the general population, gender and age makes a huge difference. And their popularity is mainly with females, generally younger. Its pop dance music, the whole genre is like that, not just these 2. The venn diagram of people who like pop dance music and people who like football has very little overlap.
I’m telling you straight up, you’re wrong. I was literally at a Shakira concert last year (yes, believe it or not, in the Spanish pop market, Shakira’s career is still going strong; her last album was the highest selling Spanish language album of the year and won Pop Album of the Year ar the Latin Grammys and Latin Album of the Year at the Grammys). While pretty much the entire audience was latino people (it was in Dallas after all), there was a pretty even mix of genders and ages. You realize she’s been a massive Spanish language pop star since the mid 90s, right?And while I can’t speak much on J.lo since I’m not much of a fan, she has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity lately admittedly for reasons other than music. Why is it so hard to believe that capitalizing on that resurgence is a good idea?Finally, can you just try to think of what it means to the latino population in the USA, who has been routinely and systematically targeted, harassed and scapegoated in the past few years in particular, that two of its biggest and most beloved superstars are headlining the halftime show of the largest sporting event in the USA? Im not saying you need to be obligated to like either of these performers, but geez, can you at least refrain from shitting all over them? You can think of it as a chance to reload on snacks and drinks while we can forget that half of the country hates our existence for 15 minutes and bask in the glow of our superstars being fabulous.
This needs more stars, especially for the last paragraph.
Why is this a bad choice? Why are teen girls the only people that would like this? Shakira and JLo have been singers and dancers since the 90s and have multiple Billboard hits under their names. Their fans are not just teenage girls (somehow you forget the amount of Spanish speakers in the US that are massive Shakira fans). What are the demographics of *checks notes* one of the most widely-watched television events of the year? Are you upset that they’re a) women, b) Latina, c) both?
THANK YOU. Oh, they chose acts that don’t pander to middle aged white guys and suddenly it’s a massive mistake. I can think of many people in my family and community who will tune in to watch them just because of the rarity of seeing two latina superstars perform on a national stage like this.
Also wanted to thank you for mentioning Shakira’s Spanish-speaking fans in the USA. People who judge her based solely on her English pop music are so cringe. Like…I don’t expect you to be familiar with her Spanish music, I mean, it’s not like I’m very familiar with a lot of non-English/Spanish music myself, but to judge an artist off the work that’s not even their core work? Why?
My roommate is a gay Latino so he’s already told me about how much better she is when she’s actually writing the lyrics in Spanish and how popular she is with Spanish speakers. And he and other friends of mine have been freaking since the announcement. Have people not heard “estoy aquí” or “bicicleta”? Even as someone who doesn’t understand the lyrics, the songs themselves are still great.
They need to do something to keep the NFL relevant. What better way than commercials and half time shows. After all, the game itself can be boring as hell and they can only make up so many irrelevant rivalries. This isn’t WWE, so there really is no built-in drama. It’s just so hard to give a shit about anything to do with the NFL these days. Especially knowing how well they treat the players.
I see it as the opposite. Your average/casual football fan is watching the super howl no matter what, so it makes sense to try to get a performer that brings in a new audience that wouldn’t normally watch.
This is absolutely not for teen girls. This performance will be in 2020, not 2005. This is for the latinx audience, and for Jennifer Lopez’s Oscars push.
They became big hits when I was a teen girl…and I’m mid-30’s now, and even then they were popular with more than just teens. Your reference for their target demographic is 15-20 years out of date.
This would’ve been somewhat exciting 20 years ago.
Did somebody say… Shakira?
This will be a good way for the NFL to reach the elusive “teen girls from 2003″ demographic!
I would be totally okay and think it would be more thematically in touch with the Superbowl if the halftime show was just a 20 minute competitive eating contest. But, yah, have Lopez and Shakira do competitive eating, why not.
Good lord, J-Lo’s makeup during that halftime interview on the Thursday night game was hideous.
That sucks I thought Jay-Z meant that would change. I guess people are still rightly pissed about Kap. The football will be good, I’ll duck out during the halftime show.
Never been a fan of Lopez’ music, and I’m only a casual fan of Shakira. But I do like the fact that she doesn’t have a traditional sound.Regardless I do think that they can put on a good show, unlike whatever the hell Maroon 5 did this year. But as Notable Artist The Rock might say, it doesn’t matter what I think, as the pairing is gonna draw eyeballs.