Some people meditate, some work out and some endlessly run through their steps until they can’t walk anymore. Not The Weeknd, the “Blinding Lights” singer is super chill in a new one-minute promo video for his halftime performance at Sunday’s (Feb. 7) Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Chilling on the 50-yard line and sipping tea while flipping through a newspaper featuring a headline about his upcoming set in the middle of the matchup between Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs, the Canadian singer born Abel Tesfaye looks super relaxed.
Rocking the outfit that has become familiar to fans over the past year of promotion for his After Hours album — oversized sunglasses, a sparkly red suit and black tie, matching shirt and leather gloves — he is seated in front of a table piled with an impressive array of snacks.
From Jell-O molds to shrimp cocktail, fruit, eggs, champagne and a tall glass of orange juice, he seems unfazed by the pressure of the big game even as a rain of footballs starts pouring down from the sky above. Luckily, Abel has an umbrella over this table to shield him from the pigskin precipitation.
On Thursday night, Weeknd revealed that he plans to buck recent tradition and go it alone during his 2021 Pepsi Super Bowl LV halftime performance. “I’ve been reading a lot of rumors,” the singer told the NFL Network while discussing whether he’ll have any special guests on stage. “There wasn’t any room to fit it in the narrative and the story I was telling in the performance. So, there’s no special guests, no.”
Check out the clip below.