Largest TV audience for a Super Bowl half-time performance

The Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show by Rihanna (Barbados, b. Robyn Rihanna Fenty) at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, USA, on 12 February 2023 attracted a TV audience of 121.017 million concurrent viewers, according to an adjusted report by data-collection specialists Nielsen on 2 May 2023. The revised figure leapt from 118.7 million viewers and nudged Rihanna ahead of Katy Perry’s Super Bowl XLIX half-time show on 1 February 2015, which was watched by a reported 121 million TV viewers.

More people watched Rihanna’s half-time performance – which included hits such as “What’s My Name”, “We Found Love”, “Umbrella” and “Diamonds” – than the game itself (115.1 million, breaking 2015’s 114.442-million record), contested by the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Chiefs won 38-35. It was Rihanna’s first live performance in more than five years, and she took the opportunity to reveal that she was pregnant with her second child with US rapper A$AP Rocky (b. Rakim Mayers). Ironically, Rihanna’s lingerie and clothing brand, Savage X Fenty, sold T-shirts carrying the slogan: “Rihanna concert interrupted by a football game, weird but whatever” as part of its game-day collection.