The Super Bowl halftime show might be one of the biggest televised performances of the year but there are some musical artists who have shown no interest in performing for football fans on NFL’s biggest night of the year.

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In 2023, 118.7 million people tuned in to watch Rihanna’s epic performance — her return to the stage after a seven year hiatus — and set a record for the most viewers in the show’s history. In 2024, the honor is going to Usher who will perform at halftime while the Kansas City Chiefs attempt to defend their reign as Super Bowl champions against the San Francisco 49ers. 

Yet the coveted 13 minute performance slot is not something every musical artist is yearning for! Some of the biggest names in music have reportedly turned down offers to perform at the Super Bowl, vocally expressed that they will never do it, or just showed no interest.

From A-listers like Adele and Taylor Swift who have never performed, and reportedly don’t intend to anytime soon, to stars like Rihanna who once boycotted the event before changing her mind, there are many reasons why some artists have avoided the Super Bowl.

So, to find out who has refused to perform during the Super Bowl halftime show and why, keep scrolling!

• Adele

  

  In 2016, Adele reportedly told fans that she turned down an offer to perform at the Super Bowl during a concert at the Staples Center, according to Billboard. 

  “First of all, I’m not doing the Super Bowl. I mean, come on, that show is not about music. And I don’t really — I can’t dance or anything like that. They were very kind, they did ask me, but I said no,” she said.

  However, the NFL and then-sponsors Pepsi pushed back against the singer’s claims, stating that they had not extended a formal offer to the Grammy-winner. 

• Taylor Swift

  

  Taylor Swift might be the main attraction at the 2024 Super Bowl due to her romance with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, but she will be remaining firmly in the stands and not on a stage!

  According to Business Insider, Swift has turned down the offer multiple times, including for the last two years. 

  In 2022, there was major speculation that Swift would perform at the 2023 Super Bowl after Apple Music replaced Pepsi as the event’s sponsor. Swift has been a supporter of the streaming platform and has a deal with Coke that fans speculated had been inhibiting her from performing in previous years.

  However, Swift reportedly rejected the offer both then and for the 2024 show.

• Rihanna

  

  Before delivering one of the best Super Bowl halftime show performances of all time, Rihanna told Vogue in 2019 that she rejected offers to perform at the event in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.

  Kaepernick peacefully protested police brutality in 2016 by taking a knee during the national anthem and was released from the NFL that year. 

  “I couldn’t dare do that,” Rihanna said of performing at the show. “For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”

• Cardi B

  

  Like Rihanna, Cardi B also spoke about turning down offers to perform at the Super Bowl in solidarity to Kaepernick. 

  “I got to sacrifice a lot of money to perform. But there’s a man who sacrificed his job for us, so we got to stand behind him,” Cardi B told AP News in 2019.

  She also revealed that then-husband, Offset, was ditching the event for the same reason.

  “He really wants to go to the Super Bowl, but he can’t go to the Super Bowl, because he’s got to stand for something,” she said.

• Dolly Parton

  

  Dolly Parton told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2023 interview that she has turned down offers to perform at the Super Bowl “many times.”

  “I couldn’t do it because of other things, or I just didn’t think I was big enough to do it — to do that big of a production,” she explained. “When you think about those shows, those are big, big productions. I’ve never done anything with that big of a production. I don’t know if I could have. I think at the time that’s what I was thinking.”

  However, we’re not losing hope because Parton did express that she could be open to the performance now that she has released a rock album. 

  “It would make more sense. That might change. I might be able to do a production show,” Parton said.

• Jay-Z

  

  Jay-Z does play a role in producing the Super Bowl halftime show through his company, Roc Nation, but the rapper has spoken of his decision to back out of performing at the show several times.

  In a 2019 interview, he spoke about not agreeing with the selection process.

  “I think the process of selection was fractured,” he said. “Take four of us and everybody thinks they’re playing the Super Bowl. It’s almost like this interview process. So if I could pick one, three other people are upset. That’s not even good math. After three years nine people are upset and three people are going to play. I just think the process could’ve been more definite.”

  Then again in 2021, the rapper told The New York Times, that he backed out of an offer to perform when organizers insisted he brought Kanye West and Rihanna out during his performance.

  “Of course I would have,” Jay-Z said, “but I said, ‘No, you get me.’ That is not how you go about it, telling someone that they’re going to do the halftime show contingent on who they bring. I said forget it. It was a principle thing.”

• P!nk

  

  After singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in 2018, P!nk reportedly had an offer to perform the following year but turned it down, as she discussed in a 2019 interview with Billboard.

  ”Everybody that does it gets so persecuted,” she said, before vocalizing support for Kaepernick. “I’d probably take a knee and get carried out.”

   They should only give it, because of the controversy, to African-American or Latina women for a while,” she added.

• Metallica

  

  In 2016, Metallica’s James Hetfield said that the band’s chance to perform at the Super Bowl had passed and he had no intention of pursuing the gig.

  “I can’t dance, I can’t jump around, I’m not an acrobat, I’m not a variety show, you know? We are artists. We’re a band. We love playing songs. We’re not gonna fly through the air on a sparkly star with a unicorn,” he explained.

  “It’s become less about music unfortunately and more about just the spectacle. When we played for the fiftieth anniversary of the NFL… right here in our hometown and they didn’t have us do it… that would have been the time. Maybe that time has passed?”

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