Music Icon Reveals She Turned Down Super Bowl Halftime Show With Jennifer Lopez and Shakira

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show will go down as one of the best in history. In fact, it was a cultural win for the two superstars, with Lopez paying homage to her Puerto Rican roots and Shakira to her Columbian roots.

Legend Gloria Estefan was also asked to take the stage. She ultimately turned it down, for a number of reasons.

“I’d done it twice successfully. Everything has its moment…it was one of the best Super Bowl shows I’ve seen,” she told Entertainment Tonight, noting she received a call from Jay-Z to participate but felt it was not for her. 

Estefan spoke about it candidly while appearing on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen years ago. During a game Cohen called “The Holy Grail of Questions,” he asked Estefan why she turned down the performance, especially after Lopez chronicled the historic performance for a documentary in which she said sharing the stage with Shakira was a mistake. 

“Could you do it with one person? Yes. But I think they wanted to throw a Latin and Miami extravaganza, and they tried to pack in as much as possible, and they killed it,” Estefan said. Lopez and Shakira only had six minutes each to split and perform a medley of their biggest hits. The icon also joked that she would have only been able to sing one line of her most popular single, telling Cohen, “I literally would have come on and said, ‘Come on shake your body…’” referring to her single “Conga.”

Estefan also revealed she’d done the Super Bowl Halftime Show previously and it was Lopez and Shakira’s time to shine, and added that she “didn’t wanna go on a diet in December” in order to be in shape for the performance in February. “It’s Christmas,” she added.