Jennifer Lopez Reveals Why She Incorporated ‘Hustlers’ Dance Moves Into Super Bowl Halftime Show

Jennifer Lopez‘s section of the Super Bowl halftime show had everything — multiple costume changes, salsa dancing, a surprise appearance from Lopez’s daughter, Emme, and Lopez herself on a stripper pole, which she used to show off the moves she had learned for her role in last year’s Hustlers.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Lopez explained why she decided to incorporate pole dancing into her performance, which she featured during her song “Waiting for Tonight.”

“It was such a skill to learn, I just knew at this time it would be a fun thing for the audience,” she said.

The 50-year-old also discussed the decision during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

“That was my little nod to Hustlers,” she shared. “I was like, ‘I learned some pole things, lemme see what I could do, we can put it in there.’”

“I just felt, again, like it was a very powerful move,” she continued. “It was like, ‘Look, Ma, no hands!’”

The multi-threat started her performance on the top of an Empire State Building prop singing her hit “Jenny From the Block.”

“I wanted it to be like women were on top of the world; we’re on top of the world right now!” she explained.

As the professional she is, Lopez told Fallon that she wasn’t nervous about the amount of choreography she was about to perform.

“I’m good!” she shared. “That’s what happens, right before you go on, you start getting in the zone. That’s why I’m doing all of those crazy things, and my face is, like, dead face, because you have to stay so calm.”

Toward the end of her performance, Lopez was joined by Emme, who sang a snippet of “Born in the U.S.A.” as well as her mom’s “Let’s Get Loud.”

“She has the performance gene,” Lopez said of her daughter. “She doesn’t let it in her mind how big it is or how it scares you, that’s what you have to do when you’re up there. You have to control. She has that gene, the gene of, ‘I’m comfortable up here.’ I think she gets amped, she gets excited, but a cute excited.”

“I wish I felt more like her,” she joked. “I wish I didn’t realize all of the ramifications of thousands of things that could go wrong, which is what makes you nervous, but she has a good time with it and I would never make her do it if she felt uncomfortable in any way. She was excited to do it.”

Lopez co-headlined the show alongside Shakira, who used her own half of the performance to pay tribute to her culture in a number of different ways, incorporating dances originated in her home country of Colombia and featuring elements of Arab culture.

Photo Credit: Getty / Kevin Winter