Adele’s been pretty busy since releasing 25, her long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s break-up opus 21, last fall. She’s broken download and sales records while keeping the album off the digital shelves of Spotify (though she later relented), and has been on the Adele Live 2016 tour since February. Amid that flurry of activity, the artist says was also offered a chance to perform at the next Super Bowl halftime show, which she turned down on account of that particular spectacle not really being “about music.” (And she’s right, because it’s clearly about dancing and marketing.)
But now the NFL and Pepsi, the halftime show sponsor of record, are denying that any such offer was ever made. Billboard published the following joint statement from NFL and Pepsi, and while they insist that they’re big fans of the English singer, they never asked her to follow in her countrymen Coldplay’s (underwhelming) stead:
The NFL and Pepsi are big fans of Adele. We have had conversations with several artists about the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. However, we have not at this point extended a formal offer to Adele or anyone else. We are focused on putting together a fantastic show for Houston and we look forward to revealing that in good time.
As of the time of this writing, Adele hadn’t responded to this clarification—maybe she’s busy campaigning in the wake of an Emmy nomination for her November 17, 2015 show at Radio City Music Hall.
[via Pitchfork]
