After months of anticipation, Rihanna’s performance at the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show took place at Arizona’s State Farm Stadium tonight (February 12), and you can watch what went down below. In her first public performance in 5 years, she opened the show with “Bitch Better Have My Money” while floating on a translucent platform. She followed with a medley of “Where Have You Been,” “Only Girl (In the World),” “We Found Love,” “Rude Boy,” “Work,” “Wild Thoughts,” “Pour It Up,” and more. Check it out below.
Rihanna wore a red tracksuit during the show, as well as a high-shine red bustier underneath. The silhouette of her look has caused speculation that she is pregnant again. The singer was surrounded by a throng of dancers in sunglasses, white hoodies and white sweatpants. The dancers commenced the performance on their own floating stages, and then flocked around Rihanna with synchronized choreography.
Rihanna returned last year with “Lift Me Up” and “Born Again,” her contributions to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which marked her first new music since the ANTI era. “Lift Me Up” picked up nominations for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. Rihanna is also working on a reggae-influenced album, she has said. Speaking to a pre-Bowl press conference, she said last week that she is “open to exploring, discovering, creating things that are new, things that are different, things that are off, weird, might never make sense to my fans. I just want to play; I want to have fun with music.”
Since ANTI, Rihanna has occupied herself with her Fenty fashion line, now part of LVMH. In 2019, she starred in Childish Gambino’s Guava Island and published a 504-page “visual autobiography.” In her film star guise, she has featured in Ocean’s 8 (2018), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), “Bates Motel” (2017), and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016). She had her first child with A$AP Rocky last May.
Read Pitchfork’s features “How Rihanna Became the Most Stylish Pop Star of Her Generation” and “Is Rihanna the Most Influential Pop Singer of the Past Decade?”