On February 12, 2023, after a whopping 7 years away from the stage light, Rhianna—the woman, the myth, the legend—was set to appear at the Super Bowl Halftime performance to perform snippets from 12 songs, 6 of them No.1 hits. Micheala and I will discuss our side of this heavily talked about performance. So, what got the people talking?

Is Rihanna…Pregnant?!

I’m sure everyone was absolutely shocked when the camera slowly panned out to see Rihanna’s “surprise guest…” AKA her baby bump. Lets not forget Rihanna was just pregnant about a year ago with her first child! With her publicists later confirming that she is in fact pregnant again, the audience made a safe assumption that she was pregnant because of her lack of movement, which is understandable since she’s carrying a baby in her stomach.

No surprise guest?

Before the Super Bowl even happened, Rihanna was interviewed and asked if there would be any special appearance, including another artist, Rihanna couldn’t tell us the full details but did say, “I’m thinking of bringing someone.” All over the internet people guessed, “who could she bring onto the platform with her” and how will they arise on stage? From previous performances we all remember Lady Gaga starting her performance ON TOP OF THE STADIUM! When the show finished, disappointed faces were made clear when we realized she didn’t bring any artist on stage with her. Maybe the crowd misunderstood Rihanna and she actually meant that the surprise guest was the fetus in her stomach. Some of the guesses included artists like Jay-Z and Kanye (that’s a whole nother story) when she performed songs like “Umbrella”, “Run This Town,” and “All of the Lights”. Although Jay-Z was there, he did not perform with Rihanna. The real question is: were you disappointed there was no surprise appearance from another artist, or were you happy that Rihanna is bringing her second child into the picture?

Our overall opinions 

In all, the entire halftime event was really just her appearance. There were no guests, no grand costume changes, and we can all agree that this performance was quite brief. But, there are factors that we must take into consideration. For example, she was pregnant and although Rihanna has great dance moves, she couldn’t move around as much because of her pregnancy. Most incredibly, she was suspended around 60 feet in the air! This takes a lot of courage in itself and has to be more recognized and appreciated. As for the background dancers looking like Michelin men, we thought they did terrific. Their moves were smooth and you can tell that a lot of effort and time went into the choreography. THE DANCERS WERE 60 FEET IN THE AIR… DANCING! Now, that’s what I call commitment. In total, we believe this performance done by Rihanna was not halftime show worthy in comparison to past shows but, we still believe that this show was memorable due to pregnancy and becoming the first artist to perform pregnant at the Super Bowl. What was your opinion on this year’s Super Bowl performance?