Jennifer Lopez says her Super Bowl halftime performance will help show the value of Latin Americans at a time when they’re “being treated a certain way in this country.”
“I think it’s important in this day and age for two Latin women to be standing on that stage,” Lopez told Robert Pattinson as part of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, released Wednesday.
{mosads}The “Dinero” singer and Colombian-born mega-star Shakira were announced in September as co-headliners of Super Bowl 54 next February in Miami.
Lopez, 50, said the performance will come as “Latinos are being treated a certain way in this country, or looked at a certain way.”
The Grammy-nominated artist said her goal is to “show that we have a really specific and beautiful culture and worth and value, and we bring something to this country that’s necessary.”
Questions were raised last February over which performers would accept the high-profile halftime gig amid the controversy surrounding former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The ex-San Francisco 49ers player was the first NFL player to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of social injustice — and he remains unsigned to a new team.
While she didn’t address the Kaepernick controversy, Lopez said, “That night, I want it to be a celebration of who we are. All of us, because we’re in this together.”
“That’s how I feel,” Lopez added. “I want to bring everybody together in that moment.”