Don’t ever tell Megan Thee Stallion that you’ve never had Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, because if you do, chances are she’ll question your entire childhood. During a Billboard interview about her upcoming Super Bowl commercial with Charlie Puth for the iconic Frito-Lay snack brand, a bemused Megan scrunched her face in disappointment after learning that her interviewer had never had Flamin’ Hot Cheetos before.
“I don’t believe that. What little kid on the planet earth never had a Hot Cheeto?” she quipped. “You don’t know what you’re missing. How do you skip over the most lit bag for Cheetos? It’s the most decorative Cheeto bag too. You need to get some Hot Cheetos. You definitely slipping.”
The Flamin’ Hot commercial combines two of Megan’s loves: her affinity for the spicy, savory chips and her adoration for renowned hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa. Acting the role of a red hummingbird, she incessantly hums the 1988 classic hit “Push It,” while Charlie Puth hangs in the background as a sly fox with surprisingly tight beatbox skills.
“I am The Hot Girl Coach,” said Megan about why she teamed up with Flamin’ Hot. “I am Miss Flamin’ Hottie. I mean, I am all things hot. So I feel like it was very necessary for the Hot Cheeto and the Hot Girl to get together.” Set to air during the big game on Feb. 13, Megan’s boisterous fanbase will get to see her in action in the Super Bowl commercial and can expect more acting from the Houston polymath thanks to a production deal she signed with Netflix in December.
Billboard spoke with Megan about paying homage to Salt-N-Pepa, what a joint project with Jazmine Sullivan would sound like, and the power of manifestation.
In the commercial, you play the role of a hummingbird rapping Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It.” If you can switch places and be any animal in the world for a day, who would you choose and why?
If I could switch places with any animal, it would be my puppy Foe because he’s so famous and so loved. When I have Foe with me, people don’t even run up to me, they be like, ‘Oh my God. Foe!” He gets all the hugs and kisses and people just feed him all kinds of stuff. If I can be any animal, it would definitely be my dog.
What’s his Instagram count at right now?
Foe is famous. I don’t even know. Does Fo have four million followers yet? — Almost [laughs]. My friends be like, ‘Damn. Foe got more followers than me’ and I be like, ‘Well, he is the Hot Dog. He is him.’
As I mentioned, in the commercial, you’re humming “Push It” and I thought it was pretty cool how they honored you for Glamour‘s Women of the Year honor last year. Talk about that full-circle moment and the love you have for the group.
First of all, when you’re talking about female rap, you have to include Salt-N-Pepa in that conversation. They are Salt-N-Pepa. They are the pioneers. When they asked me who would I like to honor me at the Woman of the Year event, I definitely was like, ‘What are my options?’ I said, ‘Can we get Pepa to come up here and do this? Like will she come?’ She came and did it. We met and our energy is so the same. I love her. When Cheetos was like, ‘Ok, Megan. This the song we’re doing,’ I was like, ‘Oh, when she sees this, she’s just gonna know I love her!’
Congrats on finishing school last year. What does it mean for you to be an HBCU college graduate?
I feel very accomplished. I really feel like I did something that was very prestigious. I feel like I’m making all of the women in my family proud. All the women in my family went to HBCUs. I’m just going down the legacy of doing the same thing of fully college educated women. I definitely just had to keep making them proud and I had to make myself proud. I had to prove to myself that I can finish it and I did even in the middle of my chaotic life. I just also wanted to show the Hotties that you can do whatever you put your mind to. So I’m super proud to have graduated from an HBCU.
You said after you graduated that the goal for you was to build health care facilities and create jobs. Is that still a goal of yours?
That’s definitely still on the table. Whatever I say I’m gonna do, I definitely always do it. That’s not an easy process, but that’s definitely in the works though.
You also struck a deal with Netflix last year. Talk about how that came about and what you have in store for your fans.
I’m definitely going to be in my acting bag and I’m definitely going to be in my directing bag. [I] can’t give away too much because you already know as soon as y’all know about something, it’s already been in the works for a minute. I’m super excited, but I don’t wanna give away any surprises though.
An old tweet of yours about the importance of having a team appeared on billboards across the nation and went viral. Looking back, what does the value of having a team mean to you now?
I mean, I just knew I couldn’t make everything happen on my own. Nothing that works is one person doing everything. So when I finally started building the right team around me and having the right team around me, I definitely feel like my career just propelled and went super high. I’m so appreciative to everybody on my team. Shout-out to all of y’all, but you definitely can’t just do everything by yourself. So me having that team helped me take off.
On the music end, if you can pick anybody from the R&B side to do a Best of Both Worlds project with, who would you choose and why? I know Jazmine Sullivan said she was ready to work with you.
A whole project [laughs]? Ok, me and Jazmine Sullivan would definitely have some stuff to talk about. We’ll have the girls crying, we’ll have the girls screaming, we’ll have the girls dancing, we’ll have the girls sipping wine, [and] sitting in the backyard sipping cognac, but no [laughs]. The men better go run and hide if me and Jazmine Sullivan do an EP, so that’s actually a really good idea. We need to get that in the works.
I know you manifested that Beyoncé feature and it happened. What else are you manifesting for yourself career-wise in 2022?
Everyday I think of something new that I wanna do and I start to try to leave the breadcrumbs of how I’m gonna do it, but right now, I’m definitely manifesting that I will get these buildings together to open up my assisted-living facilities. I already manifested my Netflix deal, so you will see the results of my manifestations from that.
