Rihanna's Super Bowl Performance Generates Over 100 FCC Complaints

Paper Magazine
Sat, 25 Feb 2023 01:45:29 +0000
Rihanna, Sam smith, Unholy, Super bowl, Kim petras, Satan, Fcc, Music, Asap rocky, Famous people, Sports, Misogynoir

Rihanna's incredible Super Bowl halftime show apparently left some football lovers clutching their pearls.

As we all know, the "Umbrella" singer absolutely slayed her appearance at this year's game, where she made headlines for both her bombastic performance and surprise pregnancy reveal. Oddly enough though, it turns out that not everyone was happy to see the icon pop up on their television screens, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reportedly received over 100 complaints about what was arguably the best part of the entire goddamn broadcast.

Everything. @Rihanna #AppleMusicHalftime pic.twitter.com/shK5n9wCcN
— NFL (@NFL) February 13, 2023

According to records obtained by TMZ, the government agency received 103 complaints related to Rihanna's performance, most of which stemmed from the "inappropriate" and "overly sexual" nature of the lyrics and choreography, which was referred to as everything from "genital grabbing" to "pornography."

“I will NOT watch this again next year if this is how you are going to disrespect our nation,” as one person wrote, while a second critic said that "perpetual air humping and glorifying being a stripper isn’t child friendly for the Super Bowl."

Meanwhile, another viewer claimed that "this year the halftime show was so indecent I had to turn off the TV because of the pornographic content" before another naysayer accused Rihanna of having "spread her ass cheek at the crack" and "rubbed her pants where her labia were three times."

In fact, it turns out that these people were so outraged by her performance that she received more complaints than Sam Smith and Kim Petras' wickedly fun Grammys performance of "Unholy." However, it should also be noted that this disparity is probably also the result of some unfortunate misogynoir, so fuck them and their bullshit opinions.

Rihanna has yet to publicly respond to the report. That said, you can still read TMZ's entire rundown about the complaints here.

Photo via Getty / Kevin Mazur for Roc Nation