Lil Wayne claims NFL took Superbowl show from him and gave it to Kendrick Lamar

Rapper Lil Wayne is saying that the NFL tricked him into thinking he would perform at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show, only to later pick Kendrick Lamar instead. Wayne says the league’s actions caused him a lot of emotional pain and professional letdown.

For more than a year, Wayne actively tried to get the highly sought-after Super Bowl halftime performance in his hometown of New Orleans, according to TMZ. He was very upset and openly expressed his disappointment when the NFL announced Kendrick Lamar as the main performer. Wayne’s story describes what he believes was a deliberate effort by the NFL to make him think the performance would be his.

Wayne said the NFL pushed him to become more visible in the celebrity scene. This meant doing things outside his usual routine, like going to parties hosted by Michael Rubin and spending time with people like Tom Brady.

NFL drops Lil Wayne for Kendrick Lamar

Wayne thought these actions were part of getting ready for his expected Super Bowl performance. However, after Lamar was chosen, Wayne says an NFL representative reached out to him and said, “We ain’t in charge,” suggesting that Jay-Z and his company, Roc Nation, were actually the ones making the decision.

This claim goes against what Super Bowl halftime show producer Jesse Collins said in 2024 when he stated that Jay-Z had been choosing the Super Bowl performer since 2019. Wayne’s accusations imply that the NFL may have misled him or made false promises about who controlled the selection process.

The situation becomes even more complicated because of the ongoing rivalry between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Lamar’s Super Bowl performance included his song “Not Like Us,” which is a diss track aimed at Drake. Wayne ended up involved without realizing it, performing the song onstage without knowing it was meant to insult Drake.

He later said he was worried Drake might be mad at him, per Rolling Stone. Wayne’s lack of awareness shows how big the Super Bowl show was and how much attention it got. He even said he was so uninterested in the Drake and Lamar feud that he skipped watching the Super Bowl altogether, choosing instead to play pool with Lil Twist and smoke weed.

The intense effort he put into Tha Carter VI also shows how committed Wayne is to his music. He even says that for him, “vacations” are just another way to record music, proving how dedicated he is and how little he cares about typical relaxation. This mindset helps explain why the Super Bowl disappointment hit him so hard—it felt like a betrayal after all the work he had put in.

While the NFL and Jay-Z haven’t officially responded to Lil Wayne’s claims, his story presents a strong case of what he sees as deception and how deeply it affected him.