Jennifer Lopez’s frustration over co-headlining Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira

Jennifer Lopez was not happy about having to share the coveted yet notoriously short Super Bowl halftime slot with Shakira.

In her new documentary, Halftime, J.Lo is seen privately ripping into Super Bowl organisers over the stars’ double-headline act in 2020, which gave both women roughly six minutes for each of their sets.

Of course, the performance went on to become one of the most powerful pop culture moments in recent history, and massive win for Latina representation.

But if J.Lo had her way, it would have been longer.
 

Netflix documentary Halftime premiered at the Tribeca Festival this week, giving fans a behind-the-curtain glimpse of the singer’s reaction to being asked to prepare an act.

It sees Lopez initially frustrated with the amount of time the NFL gave her and Shakirato get their message across.

Lopez’s manager, Benny Medina, appears in the documentary to explain that usually, Super Bowl performers have the option to choose which guests they would like to bring out during their set. 

“Typically, you have one headliner at a Super Bowl. That headliner constructs a show, and, should they choose to have other guests, that’s their choice,” he says in the film. 

“It was an insult to say you needed two Latinas to do the job that one artist historically has done.”
 

In a phone call to Shakira, Lopez is seen suggesting they divide their performance time evenly.

“I know that the Super Bowl people want us to be weaved throughout the show. I haven’t had a confirmation about how many minutes I’m going to have,” Shakira tells Lopez during a phone call. 

Lopez replies: “Let me address that really quick. They said 12 minutes. I got kind of a good confirmation that we could have an extra minute or two, so now we’re at, like, 13, 14 minutes. I think, Shakira, what we should have is you should have half the time and I should [have half].”

She later said that given it was a co-headlining set, they should have been given more time than a single headliner.
 

“If it was going to be a double headliner, they should have given us 20 minutes. That’s what they should’ve f***ing done,” she said.

The doco, which premieres on Netflix on June 14, also sees Lopez struggling with how to mix several of her hit tracks into the tight space.

Continuing to stress about the limited time, she called it “the worst idea in the world” to have co-headliners for the halftime show.
 

We have six f***ing minutes. We have 30 seconds of a song, and if we take a minute, that’s it, we’ve got five left,” she tells her music director, Kim Burse.

“But, there’s got to be certain songs that we sing, though. We have to have our singing moments. It’s not going to be a dance f***ing revue. We have to sing our message … This is the worst idea in the world to have two people do the Super Bowl. It was the worst idea in the world.”

The total performance, which included Lopez’s now 14-year-old daughter, Emme, singing a short cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA intertwined with Lopez’s hit Let’s Get Loud, earned the pair widespread praise for embracing political undertones regarding race.

But it wasn’t without controversy, either, with Christian lobby groups deeming it “too sexy” for the Superbowl.