Rihanna made her long-awaited return to the stage — on the biggest stage in all of pop music — with her grand yet curiously low-key halftime performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII.
Thirteen minutes or so of quick-cut pop bangers minus the type of special guest that halftime typically features, Rihanna’s show also raised immediate speculation on social media that the 34-year-old superstar — who appeared in a billowing red jacket over a form-fitting vinyl-ish bodice — is pregnant for the second time, less than a year after she gave birth to her first child with rapper ASAP Rocky. After the performance, a representative for the singer confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Rihanna is indeed expecting a baby.
Rihanna opened the show, her first in years, on a suspended platform high above the field at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, with the throbbing rap track “Bitch Better Have My Money” before segueing into a series of her uptempo EDM cuts: “Where Have You Been,” “Only Girl (In the World)” and “We Found Love.” The vibe was exuberant but insouciant — Rihanna’s signature mood, more or less, across the two decades of a career that’s blurred the lines among pop, hip-hop and dance music.
