The 2020 Super Bowl halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira was one of the most entertaining in recent years. The Latina superstars put on a high-energy show that had all of us shaking our hips at home while Shakira played multiple instruments and JLo showed off her Hustlers pole-dancing skills. One of the biggest takeaways from Lopez’s new Netflix documentary Halftime was her strong opinion about having to share the spotlight. Well, it turns out there was nearly a third Latina powerhouse on stage that night, and Gloria Estefan playfully threw shade at Lopez when discussing it.
Gloria Estefan, who stars in the HBO Max remake of Father of the Bride, told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that she was also asked to appear on that Super Bowl halftime show with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. Estefan laughed about what the Marry Me actress’ reaction would have been if she’d accepted, saying:
Imagine what JLo would've said if I would've been a third? I literally would have come out, like, 'Come and shake your body,' [and] out.
Ultimately the “Conga” singer chose not to take part in the Super Bowl LIV show because it was JLo and Shakira’s moment, she said, and she’d already appeared in multiple halftime shows over the years. Not to be discounted, though, was another super valid reason for turning down the gig: she didn’t want to have to diet during the Christmas holidays! All kidding aside, Gloria Estefan saw the bigger picture for what the NFL’s producers were trying to do, she said:
Look, this is the bottom line. You have very little time, you have like 12 minutes or something, to get things on and off the set. So could you do it one person? Yes. But I think they wanted to throw a Miami and Latin extravaganza, and they tried to pack in as much as possible, and they killed it. That was an amazing show.
Jennifer Lopez’s comments weren’t a shot at Shakira, but rather the already-tight time constraints she had in which to convey a message. In her conversation in Halftime, JLo said:
We have six fucking minutes. We have 30 seconds of a song, and if we take a minute, that’s it, we’ve got five left. But there’s got to be certain songs that we sing, though. We have to have our singing moments. It’s not going to be a dance fucking revue. We have to sing our message. … This is the worst idea in the world to have two people do the Super Bowl. It was the worst idea in the world.
Her manager Benny Medina also spoke in the doc about the decision to feature co-headliners, saying the halftime show traditionally had just one lead, and it was “an insult” that the NFL thought it needed two Latina women to do a job typically given to one performer.
You can check out Halftime for yourself, as it’s now available to stream with a Netflix subscription, and you can stream Gloria Estefan’s Father of the Bride remake by subscribing to HBO Max.
