Are Any Surprise Performers Expected at Super Bowl 2021 Halftime?

Will there be any surprise guest performers at the Super Bowl 2021 halftime show? The Weeknd has weighed in.

In an interview with the NFL, The Weeknd’s response when asked about possible guest performers was, “I’ve been reading a lot of rumors. There wasn’t any room to fit it in the narrative and the story I was telling in the performance. So, there’s no special guests, no.”

Read on for more details on the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show, along with some of the rumors that have been going on about surprise performers despite The Weeknd’s statement.

The Weeknd Will Break a Super Bowl Record

When speaking with Billboard, The Weeknd revealed that he will be carrying out the longest Super Bowl halftime performance in history. The show is usually 12-14 minutes long. But, The Weeknd has said his will be 24 minutes in length.

The Weeknd went on to say, “We’ve been really focusing on dialing in on the fans at home and making performances a cinematic experience, and we want to do that with the Super Bowl.”

According to People, The Weeknd will spend part of his performance on the field and part of it in the stands. TV director Hamish Hamilton is in charge of putting together the halftime show and he told CNN that due to the pandemic, “In a world that’s fracturing, it’s a great lesson in what people can build under tremendous stress when they work together and place trust in each other … It’s extraordinary.”

He continued, explaining, “It has put a very different set of parameters around the production. [But] we have risen to the challenge in the same way we rise to the challenge every year, so I guess all I would say to everybody is, ‘Tune in and make your own judgment.’”

Ariana Grande & Kendrick Lamar Were Rumored to Appear in the Super Bowl

When it comes to some of the rumors that have been circulating about surprise performers joining The Weeknd at the Super Bowl, E! News has reported that Daft Punk, Kendrick Lamar, Ariana Grande and Drake.

Ariana Grande teamed up with The Weeknd for their hit song “Love Me Harder”, while Drake has collaborated with The Weeknd on several occasions. Drake made headlines in recent months when he came to The Weeknd’s defense over his Grammys snub. Variety reported that Drake wrote on social media, “I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after. It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just can’t change their ways.”

Drake also wrote, “The other day I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way.”

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