Update: With the halftime show behind us, you can now watch Rihanna’s halftime show right here.
Rihanna has been busy lately. She’s got her various Fenty brands — Savage, Beauty, Skin — to manage. She just had a baby with A$AP Rocky. She put out a pair of new songs for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She has not been putting out the new album she’s been promising for a few years, but ours is not to question the will of Rihanna. Ours is merely to sit, listen, and be thankful for the gems she has already given us.
Luckily, the NFL will be producing a 15-minute (or so) Rihanna concert to draw attention to Sunday’s comparatively less important football game, the Super Bowl square-off between Kansas City and Philadelphia. And while she doesn’t have a new album to support — yet — it’s bound to be an incredible show, complete with all of her hits, when it begins about 90 minutes after the start of the game.
What time does the Super Bowl start?
The Super Bowl will kick off at 6:30 p.m. EST on Fox. That means fans should be ready tune in for Rihanna around 8 p.m. or so (allowing for the other main event of the Super Bowl: commercials).
How to watch the halftime show
While the Eagles-Kansas City game is airing linearly on Fox, cord-cutters have a few options on how to turn in. Live streaming options include DirectTV, Hulu, and SlingTV.
What to expect from Rihanna’s performance
It’s possible the halftime show will be a launchpad for a long-rumored return to touring, and maybe even the release of “R9” (the name fans have given her long-awaited ninth studio album). After Coldplay gave Beyoncé their halftime show and she parlayed that straight into her Formation Tour announcement, nothing seems beyond the bounds of possibility.
Plus, Rihanna has been promising the release of her ninth album since 2018, in one form or another. Over the years she has confirmed it’s a reggae album (2018), that it’s reggae-inspired and -infused (2019), that she was in the studio with The Neptunes (2020), that she just wants to have fun with her music (later in 2020), that she was taking her music and the rest of her brands to a “new level” in 2021 (end of 2020), that the new music was coming “soon soon soon” (2021), that it was going to be her “best album to this day” (2022).
Again, Rihanna gets to do what she wants, and we’ll be lucky and grateful to receive it whenever she does. On Sunday, the NFL will play its little game, but Rihanna is the one running the show.