Lil Wayne has turned his back on the Super Bowl, insisting that he never wants to perform a future halftime show after he was rejected from performing this February.
Last September, despite Wayne’s best efforts to secure the 2025 headlining gig, he was dealt a devastating blow when Jay-Z, whose company Roc Nation works with the NFL to select the halftime show performer, announced Kendrick Lamar as the halftime performer instead.
At the time, the “A Milli” rapper spoke out about the “hurtful” snub, admitting it “broke me.”
“It hurt a whole lot,” Wayne said in an Instagram video. “I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown. And for automatically mentally putting myself in that position like somebody told me that was my position,” he said, adding that it hurt even more given that the game would be held in his hometown of New Orleans.
Reflecting on the rejection in a new interview with Rolling Stone, the “Lollipop” artist said he has no interest in ever playing the Super Bowl now.
“They stole that feeling,” he said. “I don’t want to do it. It was perfect.”
Recalling the efforts he went through to try and position himself as the 2025 Super Bowl halftime performer, he said he was encouraged by someone at the NFL to increase his public-facing appearances.
“To perform, it’s a bunch of things they’re going to tell you to do and not do, asses to kiss and not kiss,” Wayne explained.
“If you notice, I was a part of things I’ve never been a part of,” he added. “Like [Michael] Rubin’s all-white parties. I’m doing s*** with Tom Brady. That was all for that. You ain’t never seen me in them types of venues. I ain’t Drake. I ain’t out there smiling like that everywhere. I’m in the stu’, smokin’ and recording.”
Once news broke that Lamar had been chosen, Wayne remembered the NFL staffer apologizing and telling him: “We ain’t in charge.
“All of a sudden, according to them, they got curved,” he added. “So, I’m going to have to just settle with whatever they say.”
Immediately after Lamar was revealed as the headliner, Jay-Z faced intense backlash from within the rap world. Nicki Minaj accused the “Empire State of Mind” rapper of snubbing Wayne due to the mogul’s alleged personal feelings about Wayne and his associates.
Wayne, however, assured Rolling Stone that he’s “still cool” with Jay-Z despite the decision. He additionally revealed he had actually phoned Lamar ahead of the Super Bowl to clear the air and share his support.
Still, Wayne said that when it came time for Lamar’s performance, he couldn’t watch, and instead spent the evening with friends.
“Every time I looked,” he said, “it was nothing that made me want to go inside and see what was going on.”
While Wayne may not have found Lamar’s performance compelling enough to watch, it did garner widespread praise from audiences and critics alike.
The “hip-hop king’s performance will undoubtedly go down as one of the most important halftime shows in the history of the event, if not the most significant mass-televised rap performance of all time,” The Independent’s Mark Beaumont lauded in a five-star review.
It also made headlines for Lamar’s inclusion of his chart-topping Drake diss track, “Not Like Us,” which led to fans declaring he had officially finished his rap nemesis.
