*Mary J. Blige stopped by the Hot 97 studio this week to dish about her Super Bowl LVI Halftime performance alongside Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem.
“I was nervous until I got on the stage,” she told Ebro Darden. “I was nervous in all the rehearsals—everybody was nervous. Everyone. But that was a huge moment.”
Blige then reacted to conservative viewers who expressed outrage over the all-Black halftime show.
“There’s definitely an energy around people feeling as if the performance at halftime was somehow, uh, it was too raunchy, or it was too real,” Ebro told Blige, adding, “or, ‘How did these gangster rappers get on stage?’ Have you seen that conversation at all?”
READ MORE: Over 100 Million People Watched Super Bowl LVI and Halftime Show
View this post on Instagram
“No, I haven’t,” she responded. “That’s a small conversation compared to how huge that is. Like, hip-hop is here. It’s more than just a small thing. It’s just as big as rock ‘n’ roll right now. I don’t pay attention to all of that. I’m just paying attention to how we got raised up. Someone looked at us—well, somebody looked at [Dr.] Dre and said, ‘We need you.’ And Dre looked at me and said, ‘I want you.’ And so on and so forth with all his friends. So, I really don’t care about [the backlash].”
Blige, who recently released her new album, “Good Morning Gorgeous,” previously revealed that she didn’t get paid for the performance.
“Listen, you’re gonna be paid for the rest of your life off of this,” she told “The Cruz Show.” “People are gonna be knocking at your doors. They don’t have to pay me, but if they was paying it would be a lot of money.”
Check out Mary’s full interview with Ebro via YouTube below.
NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVI averaged 99.2 million viewers, while 1.9 million tuned in on Telemundo.
As reported by Urban Hollywood 411, the total number of viewers who watched the game across the small screen as well as streaming and digital platforms climbed to 112.3 million, according to Nielsen.
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
