We’re sure a lot of you love muffins watched the Super Bowl halftime show featuring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, but did you catch the subtle but powerful statement about the border crisis?
The moment occurred in the middle of Lopez’s set and featured J. Lo’s 11-year-old daughter with Marc Anthony (Emme) confidently belting out a slowed down version of her mother’s hit single “Let’s Get Loud” as she and other Latina children crawled out of steel cages all over the football field. This led to a brief rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s working class protest anthem “Born In The USA” while Jennifer donned a large Puerto Rican flag.
Sources at Roc Nation exclusively tell lovebscott.com that moment almost didn’t happen. The political statement about the border crisis was J. Lo’s brainchild, a response to the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policy detaining undocumented minors in cages. But Roc Nation, the management/production company headed by Jay-Z, allegedly fought to get her to cut it from her set. Jay-Z’s Roc Nation deal with the NFL is supposed to be working to smooth over the drama caused by Colin Kaepernick’s social justice protest; but a lot of people aren’t happy with the partnership- including some inside the rapper’s own organization.
Sources also exclusively tell lovebscott.com that despite a great deal of pressure from Roc Nation, Jennifer allegedly put her foot down and insisted on keeping the segment. We’re told Jay himself allegedly tried to personally intervene to convince her, but Jennifer would not be moved away from the idea. Apparently, tensions ran so high between the two camps that Lopez eventually pulled out of joining Shakira for the opening number of the halftime show. Instead, Shakira and J. Lo only performed together briefly at the end of the show. Roc Nation also allegedly encouraged Shakira (a Roc Nation client) to not appear onstage during “Born In The USA”, but the singer eventually decided to do it anyway, “playing drums during the number.”
Jay-Z may have thought he got ahead of all the NFL / Roc Nation drama with his New York Times interview, but it looks like the criticism won’t be dying down anytime soon. It’s hard to say whether or not Jay’s deal with the devil the NFL will work out in everyone’s favor — only time will tell.
