“Cool” comes naturally to Rihanna the way breathing does to us mortals. It’s not something anyone ever forgot, per se, but with the musician-turned-beauty-and-fashion-mogul in the spotlight for everything but music over the last few years, her deep catalog and the casually swagger-filled way she performs it hasn’t been quite on the forefront of some people’s minds. Her dramatic return to the stage at Super Bowl LVII–Rihanna’s first live performance since the 2018 Grammy Awards–was a masterclass in Rihanna’s particular brand of breathtaking, understated awesomeness.
The 34-year-old singer exudes charisma to a degree even greater than your usual Super Bowl halftime performer, and there was a clean simplicity and dynamism to everything from the wardrobe choices to the stage design to the lack of surprise guests…well save for one. The moment Rihanna appeared on stage, fans began speculating about whether the superstar, who gave birth to her first child with A$AP Rocky on May 13, 2022, was pregnant once again. Following the show, one of her reps confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that she is indeed expecting her second child, per The Hollywood Reporter.
There were moments of more ornate choreography, like during her rendition of “Wild Thoughts,” but the show largely hinged on Rihanna’s natural command of the stage. In the last decade, most halftime performers have had at least one surprise guest, from Beyoncé bringing out Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams for an inspired Destiny’s Child reunion to groups like Maroon 5 and Coldplay trying to make up for subpar sets with a bevy of starry names. Rihanna could’ve had her choice of co-stars—both Jay-Z and Paul McCartney were both in attendance—but she dominated solo.
Rihanna’s set managed to feel both polished and raw, entirely free of schmaltz in a way that’s hard to do when you’re performing for 200 million pairs of eyes. Emerging on a stage that instantly drew comparisons to iconic Super Smash Bros. levels, Rihanna wore a red Loewe boiler suit and a breastplate, combining pieces by Loewe, Jonathan Anderson, and Alaïa, per WWD. The bright red, contrasting with the puffy white outfits of the dancers, harkened back to the bold, minimalist aesthetic of Anti (and The Last Jedi).
Puritanical NFL censors be damned, she opened the set with “Bitch Better Have My Money” (albeit sans “Bitch”). A bold first track choice, the 2015 hit set the tone for the night, which eschewed some of her sugariest hits like “Pon de Replay” and “FourFiveSeconds.” She also played a portion of “Rude Boy,” and gave a subtle hat tip to “S&M” during “We Found Love.”
The show probably disappointed R9 truthers who were hoping that (at minimum) she would premiere new music and (at best) we’d get a release timed around her first performance in seven years. She largely stuck to early and mid-2010s hits like “Work” and “We Found Love,” with the latest track being 2017’s “Wild Thoughts.” A brief selection of her Kanye West collaborations surely made some viewers at home nervous, as she reeled off the anthemic hook of “All of the Lights” and followed it with Jay-Z’s “Run This Town.”
Closing with “Diamonds” was an inspired choice, particularly turning it into a soaring, climactic ballad. Whether Rihanna uses the Super Bowl performance to springboard herself back to pop music preeminence or chooses to focus on her growing family and her billion dollar empire, she reminded us that in addition to her tremendous talent, she’s just about the coolest A-lister we have. If Rihanna chooses to recede from view again, her set in Glendale would be one hell of a mic drop moment.