Rihanna is rewriting the rules for pregnant women yet again

“Rihanna concert interrupted by a football game, weird but whatever”, read the Fenty t-shirt Cara Delevingne wore at the Super Bowl. She certainly wasn’t alone in this sentiment, with the Barbadian superstar’s halftime show quite literally sending Twitter into meltdown.

The veritable frenzy wasn’t solely due to her performance, nor was it the game itself - a tense showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. Rather, it was speculation around whether she was pregnant.

Rihanna gave birth to her first child with rapper A$AP Rocky in May 2022. After the Super Bowl LVII halftime show, a representative for the superstar confirmed she is pregnant again in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Previous halftime shows have featured multiple acts on each bill, most recently with Eminem, Mary J Blige, Snoop Dogg and a host of other stars all on last year’s lineup. But tonight Rihanna was bravely, scintillatingly, alone. Aside from the army of backup dancers, of course.

Her first solo public performance since 2016 saw Rihanna fly in on a suspended platform coyly singing “B**** Better Have My Money”, before breaking into a seamless medley. And tonight in her red jumpsuit she was the “Only Girl In The World”, a smile in her eye when she looked at the camera, a soft touch to her stomach occasionally.

It was a frustratingly short 12 minutes, particularly as the filling to a football sandwich, but it was a performance to go down in the music history books. And oh, darling, didn’t Rihanna do things her own way.

Comeback doesn’t entirely feel an apt word for the woman who has been conquering the business world over recent years, but regardless this was a comeback show setting a new level for artists who take a performing break. More importantly than this, Rihanna has served to inspire, not just entertain. It was already wildly impressive to play such a high pressure show months after giving birth, but to do so while pregnant again makes the feat even more admirable.

There was an added beauty to Rihanna’s performance. Rather than elicit any feelings of inadequacy, she served to make mothers seem powerful, sexy, and ultimately cool. In an event focused on men’s strength, this halftime show karate-chopped the game and said, “Oh? Didn’t they tell you that I was savage?”

All too often in television and film, pregnant and postpartum women are portrayed as not sexual, as frumpy and grumpy. As a childless woman, I salute any pregnant person and say be as grumpy as you damn well please, but for millions around the world to see a portrayal like this can only be positive. During her first pregnancy, Rihanna was regularly photographed looking nothing short of fabulous, most noteably appearing on the front cover of US Vogue wearing a red lace bodysuit, long gloves and stilettos. Her maternity shots offered a different take on how we can perceive pregnancy, and the Super Bowl performance was yet another step forward.

In music, rules are made to be broken. From Cardi B to Beyoncé to Alicia Keys and a host of others, music is one of the arts where women can create their own mould, and being pregnant can be a part of that. Recently I went to see an all-female brass band, Brass Queens, at New York’s Cafe Wah and, despite never wanting children myself, it was uplifting to see a pregnant trombone player, and the group led by a trumpeter who had given birth two weeks before.

The Super Bowl was an incredibly close game, with a series of dramatic moments from the star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, getting injured, to players complaining of slipping on the turf, a controversial holding penalty, to name but a few. Corporations clawed for viewers’ attention with star-studded commercials, ranging from the asinine to painfully patriotic. But it was Rihanna that shined bright like a diamond.