Donald Trump reveals why he won’t attend this year’s Super Bowl following criticism of the NFL
Donald Trump has spoken out on why he won't be attending this year's Super Bowl - and made his thoughts clear on the headline acts.
For those unfamiliar with the Super Bowl, it's the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL) in the United States and is hosted in a different city each year.
This year, after making it all the way to the last hurdle, the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will meet in Super Bowl LX on 8 February.
The highly-anticipated game will take place at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
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But as well as being a huge day for sport, it's also a big one for music and pop culture, as it features the iconic half-time show performance and is often attended by a slew of celebrities.
Last year, the Super Bowl set a record audience of 127.7 million viewers, when Kendrick Lamar took to the stage.
The rapper, 38, followed in the footsteps of Usher, Rihanna, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Mary J. Blige, to name a few of the famous faces who've graced the stage in recent years.
And this year, joining the star-studded list is three-time Grammy winner Bad Bunny, who will perform the halftime show, while Green Day are also set to open the event.
While many fans of both the Puerto Rican rapper and singer, 31, and the American rock band are delighted with this news, one person who is not is the US president, 79.
In an Oval Office interview with the New York Post on Saturday (24 January), the Republican leader branded the line-up a 'terrible choice'.
Making his feelings clear, Trump said: "I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible."
However, the president made it clear that he would have still attended the sporting event, despite his apparent dislike for the acts, if it had been held somewhere closer.
Confirming he won't be there, Trump added: "It’s just too far away. I would. I’ve [gotten] great hands [at] the Super Bowl. They like me. I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter."
As per the New York Post, Bad Bunny, real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has been openly critical of Trump.
Last year, he released a song called 'Nuevayol', which featured an imitated Trump voice saying: "I want to apologise to the immigrants in America... This country is nothing without the immigrants. This country is nothing without Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Cubans."
The Latin artist, who predominantly creates Spanish-language music, also performed a month-long concert residency in Puerto Rico rather than touring the mainland United States.
He told i-D Magazine at the time: "There were many reasons why I didn't show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate. But there was the issue of — like, [expletive] ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it's something that we were talking about and very concerned about."
And Green Day aren't the biggest Trump fans either, as frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has a long history of criticising the US president.
As per The Independent, he even previously altered the band’s 2004 Grammy-nominated song 'American Idiot' during live performances, changing the line 'I’m not a part of a redneck agenda' to 'I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda'.
Who knows what's about to go down at this year's Super Bowl... popcorn at the ready!
Topics: Bad Bunny, Celebrity, Donald Trump, Entertainment, Music, Sport, Super Bowl
Madison Burgess