The NFL threw a curveball (sorry, wrong sport?) when it announced that not just Jennifer Lopez would headline the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, but so would Shakira, in a double-billed performance. J.Lo’s new Netflix documentary Halftime — about her half of the performance and simultaneous career resurgence — reveals just how difficult sharing the stage made planning the show. But, contrary to what you may have seen floating around Twitter, Lopez wasn’t mad at Shakira for it. After the film premiered at Tribeca last week, fans seized on a line J.Lo says early into the doc: “This is the worst idea in the world, to have two people do the Super Bowl.†But Lopez doesn’t even mention Shakira when she says that, while speaking to her music director about cutting her half of the set down to six minutes. Later in the documentary, Lopez even laments their time constraints while speaking to Shakira on a call. “If it was gonna be a double headliner, they should’ve given us 20 minutes, you know what I mean?†J.Lo says. “That’s what they should’ve fucking done.â€
Fans also criticized another comment of J.Lo’s, this time about Shakira’s belly dancing — a centuries-old art that pays homage to her Arabic roots. Lopez had been planning to sing “Born in the U.S.A.†with her daughter in the finale to cap off the political message of acceptance she wanted to bring to the performance. In a heated moment, she explains to an NFL executive why she needs more time for the finale. “I’m trying to give you something with substance,†she says. “Not just us out there shaking our fucking asses and fucking belly dancing. I want something real; I want something to make a statement.†Again, Lopez didn’t mention Shakira in that comment, and again, it’s made in reference to the time constraints of the performance. Some people have also noted that, while she mentions belly dancing, Lopez also mentions ass-shaking, something she and Shakira are both known to do.
If Shakira was offended by the comments, she hasn’t said anything about it — she’s been busy promoting her new Peacock competition series Dancing With Myself. So instead of pitting J.Lo and Shakira against each other, why not just rewatch their joint halftime performance, one of the best ever?