The NFL has figured out its halftime show formula in recent years. Kendrick Lamar, Usher, Rihanna, and the Dr. Dre-led hip-hop showcase have all delivered. But the league earned that consistency by repeatedly failing spectacularly for decades.
5) Super Bowl 31 (1997)
The Blues Brothers
John Belushi had been dead for 15 years. The original “Blues Brothers” film was more than 16 years old. None of that stopped the NFL from booking Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and John Goodman for what amounted to a promotional vehicle for “Blues Brothers 2000,” a sequel that bombed at the box office.
James Brown and ZZ Top showed up as guests and delivered the only moments worth watching, but the headliners had no business anchoring a national stage. The whole production felt like a corporate tie-in disguised as entertainment, and the audience knew it.
You can watch the entire Blues Brothers halftime performance here.
4) Super Bowl 45 (2011)
Black Eyed Peas
The group was one of the biggest pop acts on the planet when they took the stage at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. What followed was a masterclass in how studio polish doesn’t translate to a live setting.
Fergie’s microphone wasn’t even on when she first started singing. Will.i.am looked checked out. Fergie’s attempt at channeling Axl Rose alongside Slash on “Sweet Child o’ Mine” was painful.
Usher rescued the energy briefly with his guest appearance, and the LED-lit dancers across the field hinted at where future halftime spectacles would go. But the headliners themselves were stiff, off-key, and overmatched by a stage that demands presence above all else.
3) Super Bowl 34 (2000)
‘A Tapestry of Nations’
Phil Collins, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, and Toni Braxton. On paper, that lineup had no business failing. In practice, Disney turned the whole thing into a bloated corporate celebration of the year 2000 that prioritized spectacle over music. None of the artists performed their biggest hits.
Collins sang “Two Worlds,” a track from the “Tarzan” soundtrack. Aguilera and Iglesias dueted on an original song called “Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand” that nobody had heard before or wanted to hear again.
The production, inspired by an Epcot theme park parade, felt more like a Disney attraction than a concert. Multiple Disney-produced halftime shows between 1991 and 2000 all suffered from the same problem: treating the stage as an advertising platform rather than a performance.
You can watch the entire Tapestry of Nations show here.
2) Super Bowl 38 (2004)
Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake
The performance itself was solid until its final seconds, when Timberlake tore a piece of Jackson’s outfit, exposing her on live television. What followed was a cultural earthquake. Jackson was blacklisted from major media appearances and award shows. Timberlake faced virtually no professional consequences.
The NFL, spooked by the fallout, spent the next six years booking legacy rock acts like the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and The Who for halftime. The league prioritized safety over spectacle.
The incident didn’t just ruin a halftime show. It altered the trajectory of Jackson’s career and reshaped the league’s approach to the entire event for nearly a decade.
1) Super Bowl 53 (2019)
Maroon 5
Everything about this one was doomed from the start. Rihanna and Cardi B both declined invitations in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who had been effectively exiled from the NFL for his national anthem protests.
That left Maroon 5 as the headliner for a Super Bowl in Atlanta, one of hip-hop’s most important cities. A Change.org petition urging the band to drop out collected over 100,000 signatures. The NFL canceled the traditional pre-show press conference.
The performance matched the chaos surrounding it. Adam Levine delivered a listless run through the band’s catalog, stripped off his shirt to a wave of secondhand embarrassment, and wandered through crowds of fans like a man who had lost his car in a parking garage. Travis Scott performed “Sicko Mode” and sounded like it.
Big Boi’s guest spot was so brief it barely registered. And then there was the SpongeBob bait-and-switch: after fans had petitioned for a tribute to late creator Stephen Hillenburg through the show’s iconic “Sweet Victory” sequence, the broadcast teased the clip for a few seconds before cutting to Scott’s set. The betrayal was the final indignity in a halftime show that had no business happening the way it did.
The NFL learned from it. Every Super Bowl halftime since has been a genuine event, headlined by artists with the stature and stage presence to fill the moment. If the last few years are any indication, the era of truly terrible halftime shows might finally be over.
You can watch Maroon 5’s entire performance here.
