NFLbreaking news:Kendrick Lamar Faces Viral Lawsuit Speculation After Super Bowl Halftime Show…see more

NFLbreaking news:Kendrick Lamar Faces Viral Lawsuit Speculation After Super Bowl Halftime Show…see more

Even the looming threat of a lawsuit couldn’t stop Kendrick Lamar from performing the biggest hit of his career at the Super Bowl halftime show.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper was picked as the performer at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, sparking speculation over whether he would play his mega-hit “Not Like Us.” The diss track was the culmination of Lamar’s ongoing feud with rapper Drake, who sued Universal Music Group for defamation and harassment for releasing the song.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, claimed that the song was “intended to convey the specific, unmistakable and false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal pedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response.”

The looming lawsuit led to speculation over whether Lamar would perform the song at halftime of Sunday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. Lamar teased the song several times during his performance, playing the opening lines before moving into another song, before ultimately performing it in full.

Though Lamar censored some of the potentially offending lyrics, his performance still sparked a big reaction online. Many thought the performance was a pointed response to the merits of the lawsuit.

“Kendrick really just said ‘idgaf about that lawsuit, Drake’ while displaying a video game controller on the field and lights in the stands that read ‘game over’ at the end of his halftime show,” on person wrote in a post on X. “Epic, oh so casually cold and I loved every second of it.”

“Aye man…. to all the Drake fans who swore that Drake’s lawsuit would intimidate the NFL into censoring Kendrick….. I need y’all to understand something that you and Drake both don’t seem to understand. No one in the world is scared of Aubrey. Not a soul,” another wrote.

Lamar’s halftime performance may have also carefully avoided any new controversy. The Athletic’s Emmanuel Morgan noted that Lamar avoided specific mentions of Drake in his press conference earlier in the week, and did so again at the Super Bowl halftime show.