Power Outages, Epic Outrage and Outbreaks of War: The Wildest Tales in Super Bowl Halftime History

It’s hard to recall a time when the Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t just as anticipated as the game itself. Over the last five decades, it’s evolved from a quaint intermission fronted by marching bands and local musicians to the biggest entertainment spectacle of the year, drawing upwards of 100 million viewers to watch pop royalty dazzle with a phalanx of dancers and enough pyrotechnics to recreate the end of Armageddon. (No spoilers.)

By the turn of the millennium, playing the halftime show had become arguably the most prestigious honor in American show business, bestowed upon only the absolute top tier of artists. But with more excitement and attention comes more drama, which always yields unforgettable moments. Some were planned, and others were not. Some pushed the boundaries of performance, while others pushed people’s buttons.

The controversies generated by the halftime show have ignited discussions of gender equality, racial discrimination and censorship — and whether or not a certain artist is lame. More than a reflection of pop culture, the show helped shape it on occasion, too. Phrases like “wardrobe malfunction” and “left shark” have entered the popular lexicon, and one memorable performance even inspired the creation of YouTube.

In anticipation of Kendrick Lamar’s headlining set at Super Bowl LIX, read on for some little-known facts and truly wild tales from the 50-yard line.

The New Kids on the Block’s Super Bowl halftime show was bumped due to the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War.

For the first two decades of Super Bowl history, halftime entertainment consisted of family-friendly acts like marching bands, dancing troupes, and easy-listening crooners like Andy Williams, Carol Channing or Ella Fitzgerald. The NFL began drifting away from the middle of the road in 1991 when they booked New Kids on the Block as the first bonafide pop performers for Super Bowl XXV in Tampa. The Boston-based boy band had recently notched the No. 1 album in the country with Step By Step, and the league was hoping their presence would attract a younger demographic to the big game.

In honor of the 25th anniversary, the NFL was pulling out all the stops. In addition to NKOTB, the Disney-produced spectacular "A Small World Salute to 25 Years of the Super Bowl" featured more than 3,500 local children from diverse cultural backgrounds singing the deathless Disney chant “It’s a Small World” before the headliners burst in with “Step by Step.”

Unfortunately, the surreal display was poorly timed. Super Bowl XXV occurred on Jan. 27, just 10 days after aerial and naval bombardment in the Persian Gulf began. As a result, ABC declined to broadcast the halftime show live, instead airing a special news report on Operation Desert Storm and the escalating Gulf War. NKOTB fans had to wait until after the game (around 10:40 p.m. ET) for their chance to see a delayed airing of the performance on tape — and some didn’t even get that. Many ABC affiliates decided to skip the halftime show altogether, opting to air the debut episode of the Randy Quaid sitcom Davis Rules.

Janet Jackson’s halftime show directly led to the creation of YouTube.

Before Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were tapped, the hitmaking duo behind “Hey Ya!” reportedly had been approached to play the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVIII in February 2004. In a November 2015 interview on ESPN’s Dan LeBatard Show, Big Boi claimed that Outkast was asked to perform, but his partner André 3000 balked at the requirement to play truncated versions of “The Way You Move” and “Hey Ya!” Super Bowl organizers ultimately asked Jackson, who had originally been set to perform at the 2002 Super Bowl before she canceled the appearance — and her entire tour — in the wake of the Sept. 11th attacks.

The infamous “Nipplegate” incident instantly launched the performance into the history books. The clip became the most replayed moment in the history of TiVo, and reportedly ushered more than 35,000 new subscribers to the service. But the incident led to a new technical innovation that would make Tivo obsolete. According to Forbes, Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, was reportedly inspired to create the video streaming site after being frustrated by his inability to find clips of the moment online. When YouTube launched about a year later in February 2005, an enormous percentage of its initial traffic came from people searching for videos of the “wardrobe malfunction.”

Related: Janet Jackson Doesn't 'Ever Remember Being Asked' If She Wanted to Be a Child Star: 'I Just Remember Doing It'

Artists are not paid to perform at the Super Bowl.

While the players on the field are earning the big bucks, the A-listers performing at the halftime show aren’t paid a dime by the NFL. (Though the league does pay expenses for the artists and their entourage of crew, friends and family.) Despite the fact that these megastars are, on the surface, unpaid volunteers, the gig usually yields a massive windfall thanks to the enormous audience that tunes in for the big game. Case in point: Lady Gaga, whose record sales rose an astonishing 1,000 percent in the wake of her 2017 performance.

Mary J. Blige, who sang at the halftime show in 2022, opened up about the financial realities of the Super Bowl gig during an appearance on The Cruz Show. "Listen, you're gonna be paid for the rest of your life off of this," she said days before the performance. "People are gonna be knocking at your doors. They don't have to pay me, but if they were paying, it would be a lot of money."

One of the only acts to extract something extra from the NFL was Michael Jackson. The league was anxious to add some star wattage to 1993’s Super Bowl XXVII following a relatively lackluster production the year before starring Gloria Estefan and Olympic figure skaters Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill, which caused nearly a quarter of the game’s viewers to switch over to Fox for a special episode of In Living Color. Negotiations with Jackson’s management stagnated, and then NFL producer Don Mischer pointed out that the game would be broadcast in more than 120 countries. This got Jackson’s attention. “So you’re telling me that this show is going live to all those places where I’ll never do a concert?” NFL exec Jim Steeg recalled, per Sports Illustrated. Then, after a brief pause, Jackson gave his final answer: “I’m in.”

Related: No, Performers Don't Get Paid for the Super Bowl Halftime Show — Here's Why

Initially, Jackson’s management requested a $1 million performance fee, but the NFL rejected it. The King of Pop did convince the NFL and Frito-Lay — who sponsored the set — to make a $100,000 donation to Jackson's Heal the World Foundation and provide commercial time during the game for the foundation's Heal L.A. campaign, which aimed to provide health care, drug education and mentorship for Los Angeles youth in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Steeg remembered seeing Jackson rehearsing his act in a tent outside the Rose Bowl the night before the game. “Michael worked harder than anybody [who’s done the halftime show], before or since,” he recalled. The show was an enormous success, marking the first time in Super Bowl history that ratings increased between halves during the game.

The Weeknd staged the most expensive Super Bowl halftime show to date.

Though the NFL doesn’t pay the artists to play the halftime show, the organization does cover the cost of these elaborate performances. This includes everything from pyrotechnics to costumes, props, lights, and other staging costs. This arrangement gives the musical guests a blank check to realize their most extravagant creative visions — an opportunity they fully embrace.

The scale of the halftime shows has grown dramatically in the last decade. While the final price tag for Beyoncé’s 2013 performance was a (relatively) modest $600,000, Reuters reports that the 2020 halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira cost $13 million for a 13-minute set. The bill for The Weeknd’s performance the following year was even higher. The NFL has declined to confirm the exact amount, but Forbes estimates it cost between $17 and $20 million. (However, it’s rumored that the singer kicked in around $7 million of his own money to fund the production.)

The Rolling Stones had to censor the lyrics to one of their biggest hits for the halftime show. (But at least they had the biggest stage…)

The Stones’ set at the Super Bowl XL halftime show in 2006 was controversial before they even played a note. Citizens of Detroit were reportedly offended that a Motown act wasn’t tapped to celebrate the rich musical history of their hometown. "I was upset initially, and I voiced that," Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said at the time. "The NFL missed a golden opportunity.” Stevie Wonder and the Four Tops, two Michigan-born groups, were ultimately invited to perform at the pre-game ceremony, and Aretha Franklin sang the national anthem.

Coming just two years after the infamous “Nipplegate” incident, the NFL was ultra-sensitive to anything the Stones might do that would potentially offend viewers. Organizers fretted over a line from their 1981 hit “Start Me Up” that included the phrase, “You make a dead man come” — and they also red-flagged a barnyard reference to “cocks” in their then-new track, “Rough Justice,” just to be safe.

The band and the NFL battled over the words for days leading up to the event. The fight grew so contentious that NFL Chief Operating Officer Roger Goodell threatened to cancel their performance and find a last-minute replacement.

Ultimately, the league ordered ABC to broadcast the performance on a five-second delay and muted Mick Jagger’s mic during the offending lyrics. The adjustment ended up causing more controversy, as furious Stones fans accused the NFL of censoring the band. The organization quickly went into damage control mode and issued a public statement.

“The Rolling Stones were aware of our plan which was to simply lower the volume on his microphone at those two appropriate moments,” NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in the aftermath. “We had agreed to that plan earlier in the week. The Stones were aware of it and they were fine with it.” The band confirmed they signed off on the plan in advance of the show, though their spokesperson added that they found the censorship “absolutely ridiculous and completely unnecessary.”

The Stones made Super Bowl history during their set when they performed on what was reportedly the largest stage ever made for the big game. Six hundred members of the volunteer stage crew assembled 28 separate pieces into the shape of the band’s iconic tongue logo. Even more impressive? They set up the 92-foot stage in just five minutes!

Bruno Mars is currently the youngest halftime headliner to date — and he used the event to make a sweet tribute to his late mom.

Bruno Mars was just 28 years old when he headlined the halftime show for Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014, performing with his band The Hooligans and special guests The Red Hot Chili Peppers — who drew criticism in some circles because Anthony Kiedis and Flea went shirtless.

Mars opened the show with a drum solo on a kit modeled after the tattoo on his arm that he dedicated to his late mother, Bernadette Hernandez. Then he went on to perform his breakthrough hit “Just the Way You Are” backed by the biggest fireworks display in NFL history at the time. Mars would perform at the Super Bowl halftime show again in 2016 alongside Coldplay and Beyoncé.

Many stars have turned down the invitation to perform at the Super Bowl, including The Eagles, Adele, Pink and Jay-Z.

In December 2007, it was reported that the Eagles had been offered the prestigious halftime spot at Super Bowl XLII the following February, but ultimately said no. Around the same time, drummer and co-frontman Don Henley told the AP that the group aspired to earn an invite to the Grand Ole Opry. “That would be an honor,” he said.

The “Hotel California” icons are far from the only stars to reject the invitation. During a Los Angeles concert in 2017, Adele claimed that the NFL had made unsuccessful overtures to book her for Super Bowl LII.

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

The NFL quickly walked back her claims with a statement of their own. “We have had conversations with several artists … however, we have not at this point extended a formal offer to Adele or anyone else. We are focused on putting together a fantastic show for Houston and we look forward to revealing that in good time.”

The league had a difficult time finding artists who wanted to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl due to controversy surrounding the treatment of Colin Kaepernick, who was ostracized from the NFL for kneeling during the National Anthem as a protest against racial injustice. Pink told Billboard she turned down the halftime show that year in support of Kaepernick. “I’d probably take a knee and get carried out,” she said. Rihanna also declined in solidarity with Kaepernick, later saying in a 2019 Vogue interview, “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.” (She eventually was persuaded to perform in 2023.)

Rapper Cardi B rejected the NFL’s invitation for a similar reason, though she later admitted that she had “mixed feelings” about it. “My husband [rapper Offset], he loves football,” she said. “His kids play football. It’s really hard for him. … 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, before adding that Kaepernick “sacrificed his job for us.”

Related: What to Know About Colin Kaepernick: Why the Former Quarterback Is Protesting and How It Started

Jay-Z shared his feelings on his own halftime invitation in his 2018 song “Apes—t,” in which he rapped. “I said no to the Super Bowl, you need me, I don’t need you.” Two years later he elaborated in an interview with the New York Times, claiming that the NFL pressured him to include Rihanna and Kanye West as surprise guests. “I said, ‘No, you get me,’ ” he explained. “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.” He later teamed up with the league to help develop future halftime shows and also to launch a new NFL campaign called Inspire Change.

The NFL attempted to fine rapper M.I.A. $16.6 million for flipping the middle finger to cameras during her set with Madonna.

Madonna is no stranger to courting controversy, but she was outshone during her Super Bowl performance by collaborator M.I.A., who flipped off the cameras near the end of her verse of “Give Me All Your Luvin.” The NFL was unable to blur the image in time (citing “a failure in NBC's delay system” in a statement) and the obscene gesture was beamed across the airwaves. Madge expressed her displeasure during an episode of On Air with Ryan Seacrest, saying that it was a “teenage … irrelevant thing” for M.I.A. to do, and calling the improvised move “out of place” in the show.

"I was really surprised. I didn't know anything about it. I wasn't happy about it. I understand it's punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity; it seemed negative."

The NFL was even more displeased. In the eight years since Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction,” the league remained fearful of on-air incidents that would cause them to run afoul of the Federal Communications Commission, which had reportedly received more than 220 complaints. While no FCC fines were forthcoming, the NFL filed a $1.5 million arbitration claim against M.I.A. for "breach of her contract and flagrant disregard for the values that form the cornerstone of the NFL brand and the Super Bowl.” M.I.A.’s lawyer filed a counterclaim calling the NFL's action "hilarious in light of the weekly felonies committed by its stars.”

By March 2014, the league increased its claim to $16.6 million. M.I.A. rallied support from her fans on Twitter, where she claimed that the NFL was demanding a portion of her income — a move which lacked "any basis in law, fact, or logic.” She went on to blame NBC for its “dereliction" in not blurring out the gesture during the live telecast before tweeting a request at Madonna to borrow $16 million. (She quickly deleted the message.) The case was settled in a confidential agreement that August.

Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance was followed by an unprecedented power outage that disrupted gameplay and broadcasting for nearly 34 minutes.

The 2013 Super Bowl XLVII halftime show was one of the most electrifying performances in history, but it was followed by an unprecedented 22-minute partial power outage at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The blackout occurred minutes after Beyoncé’s dazzling 13-minute set, which featured a surprise reunion with Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams for renditions of "Bootylicious" and "Independent Women, Pt. 1."

Two minutes into the second half of the game between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, a sizable portion of the stadium was plunged into darkness, confusing fans, knocking broadcast audio offline and trapping multiple people in an elevator. The power outage caused a 34-minute delay before the game resumed.

Though many jokingly credited Queen Bey’s high-energy show for overloading the stadium’s power grid, officials launched an investigation into the real cause of the outage. Ultimately, the New Orleans utility company Entergy and the Superdome attributed the blackout to an electrical relay device failure, which was meant to prevent power overloads, but instead triggered an automatic shutdown. Officials clarified that the power for the halftime show had been separate from the stadium's main grid, meaning that Beyoncé’s performance itself was not responsible for the outage. However, the timing of the event fueled endless memes and conspiracy theories online, leading Super Bowl XVLII to be dubbed “The Blackout Bowl.”

Related: The 9 Most Controversial Super Bowl Halftime Moments of All Time

Only 14 acts have been repeat performers at the Super Bowl.

Trumpeter Al Hirt (perhaps most famous for his theme to The Green Hornet) performed at the very first Super Bowl before making repeat appearances throughout the ‘70s. Broadway star Carol Channing became the first female artist to do the gig twice, while clarinetist Pete Fountain also did double duty — although 12 years apart. Vocal group Up With People notched the most Super Bowl appearances with an impressive five performances between 1971 and 1986.

In the pop era, Gloria Estefan performed first during a 1992 Olympic tribute with figure skaters Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill before singing alongside Stevie Wonder (another two-timer) and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in 1999. Justin Timberlake first performed at the Super Bowl as a member of *NSYNC in 2001 alongside Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige (another two-timer), Nelly (another two-timer) and Aerosmith. Bruno Mars entered the two-timer’s club just two years after making his headlining Super Bowl debut in 2014, when he performed alongside Coldplay and fellow two-timer Beyoncé in 2016. This year, Kendrick Lamar earns his stripes as a two-timer with his headlining set at Super Bowl LIX. (See the full list below.)

• Al Hirt: 1967, 1970, 1972 & 1978

• Carol Channing: 1970 & 1972

• Up With People: 1971, 1976, 1980, 1982, & 1986

• Pete Fountain: 1978 & 1990

• Gloria Estefan: 1992 & 1999

• Stevie Wonder: 1994 & 1999

• Justin Timberlake: 2001, 2004 & 2018

• Nelly: 2001 & 2004

• Usher: 2011 & 2024

• will.i.am: 2011 & 2024

• Bruno Mars: 2014 & 2016

• Beyonce: 2013 & 2016

• Mary J. Blige: 2001 & 2022

• Kendrick Lamar: 2022 & 2025

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