Kendrick Lamar Breaks Michael Jackson’s Record For Most-Watched Super Bowl Halftime Show
Kendrick Lamar has the hot hand and landed another huge achievement less than two months into 2025. His Super Bowl LIX halftime show is now the most-watched halftime show of all time, outdrawing Michael Jackson’s halftime show from over 30 years ago.
Roc Nation, Apple Music, and the NFL announced the feat on Tuesday (Feb. 11). “We’ve broken the record again!” they wrote on social media. “The most watched Apple Music Halftime show EVER, with 133.5 Million viewers.” This is especially notable as the performance outdrew the football game itself, which had an average of 126 million viewers, according to Fox Sports.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles ran back their Super Bowl LVII matchup from two years ago, and the Chiefs were on the brink of making history as they had the chance to be the first NFL franchise to win three Super Bowls in a row. Unfortunately for them, the Eagles had them beaten since the first quarter, and exorcised the demons of Super Bowl LVII loss with a 40-22 victory. Despite the history and narratives going into it, over seven million people were more invested in seeing the Compton rapper take the stage.
Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show viewership didn’t outpace his predecessors in a landslide, as the Philadelphia Eagles did to the Kansas City Chiefs. Michael Jackson’s legendary 1993 performance drew 133.4 million viewers, meaning K. Dot only edged him out by 100,000 people. As for Usher’s instant classic performance last year, the gap was a little wider, as he recorded 123.4 million viewers. Nonetheless, the diaspora can proudly claim the top three most-viewed Super Bowl halftime show performances, and that’s a huge win for Black History Month.
Lamar’s halftime set featured spoken portions by Samuel L. Jackson, SZA on “Luther” and “All The Stars,” and cameo appearances by Mustard and Serena Williams. The conversation going into the show was whether or not he would perform his smash hit Drake diss song “Not Like Us,” and he teased fans with it midway through the set before saying “They love to sue,” a jab at his foe for suing Universal Music Group for defamation.
When the time finally came to unleash the track, the Pulitzer Prize winner stared directly into the camera and smirked when he rapped the line “Say Drake.” Seconds later, the camera cut to Williams as she crip walked to the track, which bore significance on a few layers: she is a fellow Compton native, she received backlash for crip walking at the 2012 London Olympics, and she previously dated the 6 God, who dissed her husband, Alexis Ohanian, on his 2022 record “Middle Of The Ocean.”
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