Rihannas Halftime Show

Rihanna revealed her second pregnancy yesterday evening during her Super Bowl 57 halftime show.  

The 34-year-old singer showed the country her baby bump at the beginning of her performance, with her all-red jump suit unzipped for viewers to see her visible pregnancy.  

While singing onstage, she held her belly numerous times to clearly indicate she is now with a child.  

Rihanna began her performance suspended high in the air via a raiseable platform, along with some of her backup dancers on their own platforms below her. While held in the air, she was harnessed to the platform to prevent a long fall down to the ground.  

While held in the air, Rihanna did not move very much to her music, although that isn’t surprising as she was standing on an open surface so high up. This continued however even on the ground, with her movement starting to pick up slightly, but not reaching an intensity she has been seen to do before. This can most likely be attributed to her pregnancy, as she may not have wanted to overdo anything.  

Her pregnancy, however, was not something some people considered when critiquing her performance.  

Many fans took to social media to complain about her performance, accusing her of lip syncing her music during the performance.  

One twitter user posted multiple tweets about her performance claiming she was lip syncing, saying in one tweet “Isn’t Rihanna the richest woman alive? Why is she lip syncing? Just do your thing,” pointing to the end of her rendition of “Umbrella,” where she puts her microphone down while the very end of the song plays. Her mouth did stop moving there, but only for a few seconds while the ending of the song played and her backtrack was playing. 

Another user tweeted “It’s ok to acknowledge that Rihanna’s Super Bowl was subpar. The bar is so low now it’s almost laughable if it weren’t so sad. Pregnancy is no excuse for low energy and bad lip syncing,” referring to her limited dancing and back track that was audible. 

Some users defended the artist, giving her positive feedback and replying to negative comments about her performance.  

“She obviously has a back track so she can take pauses while dancing... all while pregnant mind you,” tweeted one user.  

Another said “first of all you could literally hear her breath in between versus. Second, you try being pregnant and 100 feet in the (air) while doing choreography and belting out notes! She did amazing.” 

Some users did not seem to be aware of the NFL policy on back tracks. All halftime shows are rehearsed and prerecorded live, so that performers can have a safety net under them. It is, however, the artists choice to sing louder or lower than the back track.  

2014’s Super Bowl also had a lip-syncing incident with the Red Hot Chili Peppers when viewers noticed guitarist member Fleas guitar not plugged into anything. The artist later confirmed that due to the NFL’s stance on having all performances prerecorded, he and the drummer decided to not plug in their instruments so they could focus on other parts of the strenuous limited time allotted performance. 

Two days after the 2014 Super Bowl, Flea wrote on the band's website “I understand the NFL's stance on this, given they only have a few minutes to set up the stage. There (are) a zillion things that could go wrong and ruin the sound for the folks watching in the stadium and the TV viewers.” 

With both sides of Rihanna's halftime performance reviews and the background on the NFL halftime shows, it seems like she did a fine job for a woman almost halfway through her pregnancy, and deserved to say “Thank you Arizona” to her audience in and out of the stadium.