NFL Appears to Edit Alicia Keys' Performance in Super Bowl Halftime Show

Keys' live singing included an off-key note that is missing from the NFL's YouTube upload.

By Ashley Turner

Alicia Keys and Usher dazzled fans with a show-stopping performance at the Super Bowl, but it was a tiny vocal slip that sparked a big debate online. During the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show on Sunday, February 11, Keys' voice cracked a bit when she sang the opening notes of "If I Ain't Got You," which many viewers noted online. 

Yet, one day after the big game, when the NFL uploaded a video of its entire halftime show to its YouTube channel, Keys' voice change was absent from the video.

Robert Komaniecki, a college music theory teacher with a decent following on X, expressed his frustration with the NFL's YouTube channel attempting to "erase that little moment." "Personally this kinda grinds my gears because part of what makes live singing commendable is that mistakes may happen, and you're vulnerable. I wonder if she or her team was consulted for this edit, my guess is probably not based on the fast turnaround, but who knows," wrote the educator.

Other posters agreed, with one user posting, "People need to hear what a live performance sounds like. Human beings are not perfect machines. They should leave it." Another wrote, "I thought it was really cool that it happens, showed that it was real. With complaints on the halftime show being overproduced, you'd think having this human moment would be a good thing."

In her halftime appearance, Keys, 43, opened on the piano with a rendition of "If I Ain't Got You," a song released in 2004 that, on one of its remixes, featured Usher. After the song, she and Usher sang their duet, "My Boo," taken from his breakout album, 2004's Confessions.

Aside from the momentous performance, Usher had another meaningful reason to celebrate. The singer and his longtime girlfriend, Jenn Goicoechea, tied the knot during the Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas. Reports confirmed that he and Goicoechea, 40 years old, acquired a license to get married before the halftime performance on Sunday, February 11. In the wake of the Kansas City Chiefs victory over the San Francisco 49ers, the newlyweds headed out for an evening in Sin City to show off their new wedding bands.

It was only in 2016 that Usher and Goicoechea first became linked, but it wasn't until three years later that the couple became official. Their family has since expanded to include their daughter Sovereign, 3, and son Sire, 2. (Usher also shares older sons, Cinco and Naviyd, with ex-wife Tameka Foster.)

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