Jennifer Lopez Is Being Called Out For Insinuating That Shakira’s Belly Dancing
Jennifer Lopez’s new documentary is here, and it’s shedding light on the behind-the-scenes process of creating her and Shakira’s iconic halftime show.
In case you need reminding, the two legends came together to perform on the football field at the Super Bowl in 2020.
As two Latina women — J.Lo is American and Puerto Rican, and Shakira is Colombian and Lebanese — their performance forged itself into the history books as the first time that two Latinx artists have teamed up to headline the coveted halftime slot.
And despite only having six minutes of performance time each, the action-packed show garnered immense praise from fans across the globe, with many viewers commending the women for platforming their Latin heritage so brilliantly.
However, in Jen’s brand-new documentary, Halftime, which hit Netflix on June 14, we discover that there were a number of bumps in the road before making it onto the big stage.
Firstly, we learn that Jennifer was frustrated with the NFL for booking two headliners and making them share the same amount of time that any solo performer would receive, as opposed to doubling it and giving the women extra time to shine.
Given that previous solo headliners like Beyoncé and The Weeknd have been allotted upwards of 14 minutes to themselves, J.Lo was seemingly hurt that she and Shakira — the first Latinx artists to take to the halftime stage together — would be expected to compromise their performance times, later branding the whole thing “the worst idea in the world.
And now that the entire documentary has been released, it seems that J.Lo and the halftime organizers weren’t quite seeing eye to eye about the more political aspects of the performance either.
So, if you’ve watched their performance, you’ll probably recall that Jennifer made a pointed statement when she was joined by her then-11-year-old daughter, Emme.
So, if you’ve watched their performance, you’ll probably recall that Jennifer made a pointed statement when she was joined by her then-11-year-old daughter, Emme.
The performance then picks up tempo and little Emme steps out of the cage to be reunited with her mom, who emerges from the back of the stage wearing a feather cape with the Puerto Rican flag on one side and the American flag on the other.
The mother-daughter duo then ended the segment with a lively rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”
Many came to the conclusion that the young performers inside the glowing spheres were intended to be representative of the immigrant children being held in crowded cages at US detention centers along the southern border.
At the time, J.Lo and Shakira were both widely praised for incorporating political symbolism and drawing attention to the devastating treatment of immigrants in the US.
However, it now seems that the NFL was actually very reluctant to include the moment, prompting J.Lo to push back at the show’s organizers in a heated phone call, which is documented in Halftime.
