On Sunday night, America and the rest of the world will be watching as the so-called Greatest Show on Earth, Super Bowl 59, kicks off.
The Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs will contest the match, at the Caesers Superdome in New Orleans, with the Chiefs aiming to win their third consecutive Vince Lombardi trophy.
While all the talk on the field is about who’ll win the game, off the field it’s Kendrick Lamar’s hotly anticipated halftime show on everybody’s lips.
The superstar rapper, 37, was announced as the headline act of the halftime show in September 2024, just months after his very public feud with Drake.
It’s the second time Kendrick has performed at the half-time show, having joined Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in 2022, but the first time on his own.
Here’s what to expect from the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, and everything you need to know before Kendrick Lamar takes to the stage.
Who is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show 2025?
Kendrick Lamar will be headlining the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show, with singer and collaborator SZA also expected to appear as a guest star.
The Humble rapper first performed as part of the halftime show line-up in 2022, alongside Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, and 50 Cent.
Now, the stage is his own. The halftime show can last anywhere between 12 and 15 minutes, and Kendrick has six full studio albums and several hit singles to choose from.
There is also talk that Taylor Swift may make a surprise appearance, with Kendrick and the world-famous singer-songwriter having collaborated on the 2015 song Bad Blood.
Taylor is likely to be in the crowd supporting boyfriend Travis Kelce, who plays for the Chiefs and is aiming to win his third Super Bowl in a row.
Kendrick, from Compton in California, broke out with 2011 debut album Section.80 and became one of the biggest rappers in the world after the release of his 2012 album Good Kid Maad City.
His third album, 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly, topped the album charts in the UK and the US, won two Grammys, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest releases in the history of popular music.
Kendrick’s 2017 album Damn saw Kendrick become the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize for showing ‘vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life’.
His latest albums, 2022’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and 2024’s GNX, reached number two and number one on the UK album charts respectively.
Are there any Super Bowl halftime show controversies?
Oh boy.
Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl halftime show comes off the back of his intense, months-long rap battle with Canadian rapper and popstar Drake.
The pair have been industry rivals for well over a decade now, and have taken subtle lyrical jabs at each other in the past – but that rivalry got uncomfortably personal and confrontational in 2024.
Drake released two diss tracks attacking Kendrick’s private life and called upon the All the Stars hitmaker to respond with a diss track of his own.
Instead, Kendrick hit back with three separate diss tracks in the space of a week and topped the Billboard charts in America with one of them – major hit single Not Like Us.
In the song’s lyrics, Kendrick viciously attacked Drake both professionally and personally and made numerous sinister accusations about the Hotline Bling singer’s personal life.
Drake has since filed (and dropped) lawsuits against Spotify and his own record label Universal Music Group, in which he accused them of artificially inflating the streaming numbers of a song that ‘attacked [his] character’.
After several Republican politicians called for Kendrick to make his show ‘kid friendly,’ rap fans are waiting with bated breath to see if Kendrick will repeat Not Like Us’ sinister accusations in such a high-profile setting.
In addition, the 2025 Super Bowl is in New Orleans, the home city of rapper Lil Wayne – Wayne expressed discontent at not being considered for the halftime show, admitting the Kendrick announcement ‘broke’ him.
What time is the Super Bowl halftime show?
The Super Bowl halftime show takes between the second and third quarters of the match itself, as the football players leave the field to take a 20-30 minute break.
Super Bowl 59 is scheduled to start 11.30pm on Sunday night UK time, and each of the four quarters are 15 minutes long. You would therefore expect Kendrick Lamar to grace the stage around midnight.
However, due to the nature of American football, which is a very stop-start sport with numerous pauses in play and timeouts, the first half of the show can take more than an hour of real time to pass by.
It will likely be between 12.30am and 1.30am on Monday morning when Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show gets going, with the Super Bowl game itself estimated to conclude around 3.30am UK time.
How to watch the Super Bowl halftime show
Super Bowl 59 will be available to watch in the UK on Sky Sports NFL, with the channel’s live studio coverage beginning at 10.45pm on Sunday night.
If you want to watch the Super Bowl for free, ITV will also be covering the game from 10.45pm, after Bradley and Barney Walsh’s Breaking Dad series.
The game itself kicks off around 11.30pm, and the halftime show will begin following the conclusion of the game’s second quarter – which will be very early on Monday morning in the UK.
Watch the Super Bowl halftime show on ITV and Sky Sports, 10.45pm on Sunday.
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