Pink Reveals Super Bowl Concert Video Amid Flu Concerns

Pink shared some footage from her recent concert in Minneapolis on Sunday, squashing rumors that she’s too sick to perform the national anthem at Super Bowl LII.

Pink first let fans online know that she was sick on Saturday, but those at The Armory in Minneapolis on Friday night already knew. The singer’s prodigious vocal range wasn’t up to its usual strength, and she actually had to stop in the middle of one of her more challenging songs.

The singer just barely made it to the end of her hit “So What.” She addressed the illness with the crowd frankly. “I’m not going to sound like [crap] all night because you guys are going to help me,” she said, to raucous applause. “We’re going to rock the (expletive) out and have a good time.”

After that, she got about halfway through the title track of her newest record, Beautiful Trauma, before she had to stop.

“I can’t do it. I hate this,” she told the crowd. “I can’t do that song. I’m sorry.”

Her fans were understanding and supportive, especially in light of the big performance she has to put on on Sunday night. On Saturday, she revealed that she was battling the flu in an Instagram post.

“Trying to practice the flu away,” she wrote. “I’ve been waiting to sing this song since 1991 when I saw my idol, Whitney Houston, own this song. And now, my chance has finally come. And it just so happens that this chance comes when I have two small Petri dish kids who literally cough INTO MY MOUTH and rub their snot on my cheek. You can’t write this stuff I swear!”

“And here we are,” she went on. “I’ve arrived at another one of my dreams which is slowly becoming a sort of nightmare. I will tell you, this is one of the biggest honors of my life, singing this song in front of my family, my military family, my dad and brother and step mama and family and the world. And the EAGLES!?!?! I promise I will do my best, as I always do. As far as the gremlins that got me into this mess, you can cough at me for the rest of your lives. If it’s a contest, babies, you win.”

Hopefully, Pink has a mild case of the flu, as the virus has become particularly dangerous this year. It’s proven to stubbornly infect otherwise healthy people, in some cases, even those who have been vaccinated. The flu has already claimed 53 lives in the U.S. this year.