Lil Wayne has sworn to never perform at the Super Bowl after alleging the NFL led him to falsely believe he would have the chance to hit the stage.
In the wake of the drama surrounding Kendrick Lamar’s headlining performance at Super Bowl LIX in Lil Wayne’s hometown of New Orleans, the rapper said the NFL had primed him to lead the coveted halftime show before ultimately passing him up.
“They stole that feeling,” Lil Wayne told Rolling Stone in a cover story published Thursday. “I don’t want to do it. It was perfect.”
The “A Milli” artist alleged that his contacts at the NFL encouraged him to switch up his persona and expand his social circle to prepare for the gig.
“To perform, it’s a bunch of things they’re going to tell you to do and not do, asses to kiss and not kiss,” he said. “If you notice, I was a part of things I’ve never been a part of, like [Michael] Rubin’s all-white parties. I’m doing shit with Tom Brady. That was all for [the Super Bowl]. You ain’t never seen me in them types of venues.”
Lil Wayne claimed his contacts at the NFL later apologized to him after Lamar was announced as the headliner, telling him “we ain’t in charge” of the Super Bowl halftime show. Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment company, has been producing the Super Bowl halftime show since 2020.
“All of a sudden, according to them, they got curved. So, I’m going to have to just settle with whatever they say,” Lil Wayne added.
HuffPost has reached out to reps for the NFL and Jay-Z.
Though Lil Wayne initially “wished [Lamar] all the best,” he appeared to take a few jabs at the Compton MC during his conversation with Rolling Stone.
“They coulda had some music, but instead they got rappin,’” he said before adding, “They fucked up.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Lil Wayne revealed that he didn’t bother watching Lamar’s February performance and went outside to smoke and play pool with fellow rapper Lil Twist during the set instead. There “was nothing that made me want to go inside and see what was going on,” he said.
After Lamar was announced as the headliner last September, Lil Wayne expressed his disappointment, saying in an Instagram Live video that the choice “hurt a whole lot.”
“I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown and for just automatically mentally putting myself in that position,” he said at the time. “I thought there was nothing better than that spot, that stage, that platform, in my city. So it hurt, it hurt a whole lot.”
Meanwhile, Lamar seemingly took shots at Lil Wayne over his comments in the tune “Wacced Out Murals” from his album “GNX.”
“Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” he raps on the song. “Whatever though, call me crazy, everybody questionable.”
Lamar left the pointed track off his setlist during his halftime performance.
Read Lil Wayne’s full Rolling Stone cover story here.
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