Pink Nails the National Anthem Before Super Bowl LII, Despite the Flu (Watch)

Despite a well-publicized battle with the flu in the days before Super Bowl LII, Philadelphia-area native Pink positively nailed the National Anthem.

Clad in a satiny white outfit and with bright blonde hair, the three-time Grammy winner was true to her badass image, removing chewing gum just before she began singing (and setting off a torrest of Internet memes in the process).

She played loose with the song’s timing, occasionally hitting a note just inside the tempo set by the accompanying orchestra, but hit every note with ease, at times breaking up a note or toying with the phrasing, possibly in an effort to sidestep the challenges of singing with the flu, but her voice was strong and on-point and she had little trouble holding notes.

But that may be overthinking it — for nearly two decades, Pink has been one of the most emotive, powerful and skilled singers working in popular music; she’s sung from trapezes while dangling from arena ceilings and, just two months ago, while rapelling down the side of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Los Angeles during the American Music Awards; and she’s sung high-pressure gigs with a devastating fl before — “Saturday Night Live” in 2003, where she was in much worse shape than she was today and still powered through.

If there’s a special Grammy for performance under physical duress, Pink earned it a long time ago.