Kendrick Lamar and Roc Nation chose a pretty eventful day to make a major announcement regarding the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.
Wayne kept silent for the better part of the week before making his thoughts clear on Instagram Live on Thursday night.
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“Your words turned into arms and held me up when I tried to fall back. That hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt a whole lot. I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown.
“I thought there was nothing better than that stage, that platform, in my city. So it hurt a whole lot,” Wayne said.
He sent a message to the outpouring of support he received from his fans on social media, adding:
“Y’all are f**king amazing. It made me feel like s**t not getting this opportunity. When I felt like s**t you guys reminded me that I aint shit without y’all. That’s an amazing reality.
“It broke me and I’m just trying to put me back together.”
Wow… Lil Wayne was just on IG Live talking about how hurt he was not performing at the Super Bowl in New Orleans
“It broke me but I’m just trying to put myself together. Thank you to my fans, my peers and my friends
I’m working on me thank you” pic.twitter.com/F8uM7QlIyk
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) September 13, 2024
Will Kendrick Lamar be paid for the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show?
It’s pretty interesting how the NFL manages to get the biggest artists in the world to perform on the biggest stage of them all without the league spending a bomb for the performance.
Over the last decade, the likes of Eminem, The Weeknd, Shakira, Justin Timberlake and Coldplay have been crowned Super Bowl halftime show performers but the NFL didn’t exactly cut them a check to bring them on board. Likewise, Kendrick Lamar will also not receive a hefty paycheck from the National Football League in New Orleans next year.
Super Bowl halftime show performers instead bank a union scale fee that amounts to a fraction of the six- and seven-figure sums they are usually paid to perform at concerts. Instead of a big, fat paycheck, the Super Bowl halftime show serves as a spotlight for the artists to boost album and tour sales.
However, the NFL did cut out a check one time in 1993. They reportedly donated $100,000 to Michael Jackson’s Heal the World Foundation after he performed at halftime.
Interestingly, 2025 will not be the first time Kendrick Lamar takes the stage at a Super Bowl halftime show. In 2022, when Matthew Stafford was playing hero ball to win his first Super Bowl ring against the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium, Lamar was a guest artist with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg headlining the show.
Who picks Super Bowl halftime show performers?
In 2019, JAY-Z’s Roc Nation signed a deal with the NFL to become the league’s live music entertainment strategist. Since then, Roc Nation and the NFL collectively decide who headlines the Super Bowl halftime show by submitting a list of performers who fulfil certain criteria to be eligible.
Per a report from SportsCasting, the host cities then pick the Super Bowl halftime performers with the most appeal.
