Cardi B Says It Was A “Sacrifice” To Turn Down the Super Bowl Halftime Show

Maybe it’s true that “no one thought about” playing the Super Bowl halftime show than Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, whose band ultimately decided to accept the gig, but for others—Rihanna and Pink among them—reaching the opposite decision felt like the right move. Cardi B, too: In a new interview with the Associated Press, the rapper said she had “mixed feelings” about declining the offer—she voiced solidarity with Colin Kaepernick (last year, she said she wouldn’t perform until Kaepernick had a job), on the one hand, but on the other, well, Offset is a big football fan, and the money was good.

“My husband, he loves football. His kids play football,” Cardi B said. “He really wants to go to the Super Bowl, but he can’t go to the Super Bowl, because he’s got to stand for something. … You got to sacrifice that.” She’s earned some criticism for still partaking in Super Bowl-adjacent events—hosting a party in Atlanta over the weekend and appearing in a commercial spot airing during the game—but, she said, “if the NFL could benefit off from us, then I’m gonna benefit off y’all.” That is—if the NFL is going to profit off of athletes and artists of color, then Cardi B is going to get hers, too. (A representative for the rapper said she was not interested in playing the halftime show out of support for Kaepernick, but this seems to be the first time Cardi B herself has weighed in in the press.)

It’s also worth noting that, here, Cardi B referred to Offset in no uncertain terms as her husband. Which, yes, they married in late 2017, but they split in late 2018 (with Offset tweeting mournfully, “F–K YALL I MISS CARDI”); however, they recently vacationed together in Puerto Rico, and when she was spotted Facetiming with him at the airport on Thursday, she called him her “significant other.”

“We working things out, baby,” she told reporters at the time. And, in Atlanta this weekend, she dove deeper into the current state of her marriage in an exclusive interview with People magazine, telling the outlet, “To make things perfect … it takes time.”

“We have a baby right now. That’s like, our real big focus,” she told People. “You know, f–king and hanging out doesn’t mean that you guys are on, like, a perfect note,” she added. “It’s a marriage, and there’s a child involved and family involved.”

Cardi B and Offset: working on their marriage, not the Super Bowl.