Super Bowl
Were the Kansas City Chiefs allowed to watch Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show?
With his team trailing Super Bowl LVII at halftime, Andy Reid told his Chiefs team to forget about watching Rihanna.
It sounds as though Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t see much of Rihanna’s spectacular Super Bowl halftime show.
The performance reached a total of 118.7 million viewers, which is 5.7 million more viewers than the game itself, but the AFC champions weren’t amongst those who tuned in.
Reid told players not to watch Rihanna
The Chiefs ended up defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 thanks to a late Harrison Butker field goal, but things didn’t look good for them at halftime.
The AFC champions headed into the break down 24-14, meaning they had ample work ahead of them as they tried to win their second Super Bowl in four years.
Mahomes, who won his second Super Bowl MVP thanks to his performance, appeared on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Monday.
He explained that he and his teammates were told by coach Andy Reid that they weren’t allowed to watch Rihanna perform, as he wanted their focus to solely be on the game.
“Coach Reid told us, he said, ‘If you go out to watch the performance, just keep walking because you’re not playing the rest of the game’,” said Mahomes, which garnered a laugh from the audience.
Mahomes did add that he heard the performance was great.
Rihanna’s record-breaking performance
Rihanna’s performance was her first in more than five years, and it didn’t disappoint.
She performed all her biggest songs and even debuted a special guest after rubbing her pregnant belly, thus announcing her new pregnancy.
The performance involved roughly 800 people, including camera and stage crews, 80 dancers, seven band members and Rihanna herself.
The singer and her dancers took to the air in seven floating stages as they delivered hits like ‘Rude Boy’, ‘Work’, ‘Diamonds’ and ‘Umbrella’. Each stage had 512 lights that were programmed to move along with the singer during her performance.
As previously mentioned, the performance was watched by 118.7 million people - making it the most watched halftime show of all time - while 113 million viewers tuned in for the game itself.
That makes Super Bowl LVII the second most-watched Super Bowl of all time, just behind the 2015 game. That game saw 114.4 million viewers watch the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24, which featured Katy Perry as the halftime show performer.