Why Taylor Swift Turned Down The Chance To Perform At 2026 Super Bowl
The halftime performer for the 2025 Super Bowl was Kendrick Lamar. On September 28, the official NFL Instagram account announced that Bad Bunny, aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, will be the Super Bowl's halftime performer in February 2026. The rapper made his debut on the Super Bowl stage back in 2020 with Shakira, and was reportedly not the only choice for Super Bowl LX. Taylor Swift is also said to have been in the running.
According to gossip columnist Rob Shuter's Substack, Swift rejected the offer when the NFL didn't meet her requirements for the job. While getting to play during the halftime show is an honor, it's also still a lot of work and preparation, and Swift wanted to be compensated fairly for her time and the crowd she knew she'd draw. However, people who perform at the Super Bowl do it for free. Their payment is in exposure — something Swift definitely does not need any help with getting. The pop star already gets plenty of exposure at football games whenever she's there to cheer on her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. "She wasn't asking for favors, she was asking for respect," a music executive told Shuter.
Frankly, if you're doing a job, you deserve to be paid for it. Another insider told Shuter that the NFL needs Swift way more than Swift needs the NFL. "Without Taylor, it's just another halftime show."
The drama with her masters could have also contributed to her decision
Interestingly, a rumored reason Taylor Swift has never done a halftime show before is that she didn't think it would do much for her career. Plus, more recently, she was already swamped with her Eras world tour, and there just weren't enough hours in the day to also plan a halftime performance (via the Daily Mail).
The pop star's drama with Scooter Braun and her masters could have also contributed to her decision to say no to the Super Bowl halftime show. In 2019, Braun ended up owning the masters to Swift's albums after his company, Ithaca Holdings, purchased Big Machine Records. In a Tumblr post, Swift shared with fans that she tried to buy her own masters but was never successful.
She and Braun had bad blood, so his having control of her life's work (and also profiting off of it) was obviously gut-wrenching. Swift found a workaround by re-recording all her music as "Taylor's Version," and the pop star was later able to buy back her masters in May 2025. With all that in mind, it's not too shocking that Swift didn't want to do something for free with the NFL reaping all the financial benefits from her hard work.