Rihanna made history on Sunday night when she sang at the Super Bowl for the first time while expecting. The nine-time Grammy winner took the stage wearing a red costume from head to toe, revealing a little baby bump beneath a shiny bandeau.
The 34-year-old multimillionaire did indeed perform beautifully during the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show, but she won’t be compensated for it. It’s also not because she’s rich. Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Justin Timberlake, and Bruno Mars were among the stars that performed at the Super Bowl before her, but they did not receive payment for their appearances. And the reason for this is that no one is compensated to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Being one of the greatest stages in the world, musicians gain more from fan exposure at the event than just a payment. When Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performed in 2020, the former garnered more than 2 million new social media followers. Days after their performance, the two singers’ respective streaming boosts were 267% and 187%, according to Billboard.
The portfolios of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar last year received a significant lift from their appearances at the Super Bowl halftime show. A week following the event, Dr. Dre’s album sales increased by 183%. Sales of Blige’s CD also increased 999%.
After being absent from the stage for over seven years, Rihanna’s performance on Sunday in front of more than 100 million viewers gave her the chance to resume her music career. She expanded her cosmetics companies, Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty, during her absence, and gave birth to her first child with A$AP Rocky. For her song “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, she was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song.
“It’s going to be a celebration of my catalog,” Rihanna said of her halftime show performance during a press conference last week. Halftime shows can cost more than $10 million to produce. The NFL and Apple Music are expected to pay for Rihanna’s performance, an NFL spokesperson told Forbes. It is however not known if the singer put some of her own money into the production.