Every February, the NFL hands one artist a global stage bigger than almost anything else in entertainment. Yet not everyone answers when that call comes in. Over the past decade, some of music’s biggest names have walked away from the offer entirely, turning down guaranteed exposure to hundreds of millions of viewers for reasons ranging from politics to pure artistic preference. The list of no-shows is more interesting than the list of yeses in some ways, because it says something about how these artists see their own careers and values. Here are eight musicians who had the Super Bowl halftime slot within reach and chose to pass.
Rihanna
Rihanna was reportedly the NFL’s top choice for the Super Bowl LIII halftime show in 2019, but she turned it down before negotiations went far. The nine-time Grammy winner was offered the halftime show for the upcoming Super Bowl, but declined in support of the athlete, with a source telling Us Weekly they offered it to her, but she said no because of the kneeling controversy. The controversy centered on Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback who had knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality.
She later confirmed the decision directly rather than letting it stay a rumor. “Absolutely,” she told Vogue when asked if she turned the offer down in solidarity with Kaepernick, adding, “I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler.” Maroon 5 ended up headlining that year instead, and Rihanna would go on to accept the slot herself for Super Bowl LVII in 2023, once the Kaepernick situation had been resolved.
Cardi B
Cardi B faced the same offer around the same time and made a similar call, though she was open about how conflicted it left her. The “Bodak Yellow” rapper told the Associated Press she had declined the offer to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl with “mixed feelings” due to her conflicting love of football and her desire to support Colin Kaepernick. Football is genuinely part of her personal life, which made the decision harder than a simple political stance.
She explained the trade off in blunt terms rather than dressing it up. “I got to sacrifice a lot of money to perform. But there’s a man who sacrificed his job for us, so we got to stand behind him,” Cardi B said at the time. She still attended Super Bowl related events that year, which drew some criticism she later addressed head on rather than dodging it.
Jay-Z
Jay-Z’s rejection predates the Kaepernick era and comes down to something closer to a negotiating dispute than a boycott. Jay-Z has turned down an invitation to perform at halftime of Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, according to a 2018 report. He later detailed the specifics in a 2020 sit down with the New York Times.
The issue, as he described it, was being told who he had to share the stage with rather than being trusted to build his own show. He said he was pressured to have Rihanna and Kanye West perform “Run This Town,” and pushed back: “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.” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft later approached Jay-Z to partner with Roc Nation on future shows. That partnership has since made Roc Nation the entity that helps produce the halftime show every year, even though Jay-Z himself has never performed it.
P!nk
P!nk was reportedly in the mix for the 2019 slot alongside Rihanna, and her reasoning tracked closely with the wider Kaepernick debate sweeping the league at the time. The singer told Billboard in 2019 that she turned down the halftime show because of its treatment of Kaepernick, saying, “I’d probably take a knee and get carried out,” and adding that fear of being criticized for agreeing to it was also a factor: “Everyone who does it gets so persecuted.” Her comments reflected how politically charged the halftime slot had become by that point.
Some accounts describe her exit from talks a bit differently, framing it as negotiations simply stalling out rather than a hard refusal. Pink was also reportedly offered the show, but negotiations allegedly took too long and both women decided to “move on.” Either way, she ended up performing the national anthem at Super Bowl LII in 2018 instead of the halftime show a year later, which gave her a version of the spotlight without the full production demands.
Adele
Adele’s decision predates the Kaepernick controversy entirely and comes from a place of personal taste rather than politics. “First of all, I’m not doing the Super Bowl,” Adele told a Los Angeles crowd in August 2015. “I mean, come on, that show is not about music. And I don’t really, I can’t dance or anything like that. They were very kind, they did ask me, but I said no.” Weeks later, Lady Gaga was announced as the headliner for that slot instead.
Her stance has held up as a fairly rare instance of an artist openly admitting the format just is not built for her strengths. “I mean, that show is not about music. I can’t dance or anything like that,” she said, framing the halftime show as more spectacle than musical showcase. The NFL, for its part, denied a formal offer was ever extended, though Adele’s own account has never wavered.
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton’s case is less about protest and more about honest self assessment of scale and logistics. Parton has never taken the Super Bowl stage, largely due to conflicts and a lack of confidence, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, “I couldn’t do it because of other things, or I just didn’t think I was big enough to do it, to do that big of a production.” Coming from an artist with her level of recognition, that admission stands out as unusually candid.
She pointed to the sheer physical demands of the show as part of what held her back. “When you think about those shows, those are big, big productions,” she said, noting she’d never taken on anything of that scale before. Fans have continued to hold out hope for a cameo appearance, even if a full headlining slot never materializes for her.
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters occupy a slightly different category, since Dave Grohl has described the conversations as friendly rather than adversarial, yet the band has still never landed the gig. Grohl recalled, “I’ve had multiple conversations over the years with them where they say, ‘We want to have a rock ‘n’ roll band. Do you think you could do it? Do you think you could do a stadium?'” His answer was always enthusiastic in the moment.
The problem, according to Grohl, is that the interest never quite converts into an actual booking. He recalled saying “Yeah man, we do it all the time,” only for the slot to eventually go to someone like “Madonna or Katy Perry or somebody like that.” It’s a lighter story than most on this list, but it still reflects a pattern where rock acts keep getting passed over in favor of pop headliners with broader crossover appeal.
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift has never issued a formal public rejection, but she has repeatedly been the NFL’s most pursued target without accepting, which functions much the same way. Heading into Super Bowl LXI in 2027, reporting indicates the league has again been trying to bring her on board. Taylor Swift is an artist the NFL has been trying to sign for the Halftime Show, though people aren’t fully convinced she’ll say yes, with one insider noting it will be her decision, and her decision only.
That pattern of being asked and holding off has repeated for years now, and it appears to be a matter of timing rather than principle. Roc Nation, which produces the show, is said to firm up its shortlist months before any formal approach is made, giving Swift ample opportunity to weigh in on her own terms each cycle. Whether she eventually says yes remains one of the more closely watched questions in the lead up to future Super Bowls.
These eight cases add up to a fuller picture of what the halftime show actually asks of an artist, beyond just fifteen minutes on a massive stage. Some turned it down over politics, some over scheduling and creative control, and at least one simply admitted the format was not her strength. The show has still gone on every year regardless, filled by performers willing to take the trade offs that these eight, for their own reasons, decided were not worth making.
