Rihanna Says Super Bowl Setlist Changed 39 Times, Teases ‘Weird’ New Music: ‘It Might Not Ever Make Sense to My Fans’

Rihanna‘s highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime show will mark her return to the live music stage for the first time in nearly seven years. How is the global pop icon feeling about it? “It feels like [playing the Super Bowl] could have only been now,” she said during an Apple Music press conference ahead of the big show.

“When I first got the call to do it again this year I was like, ‘Are you sure? I’m three months postpartum. Should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this,’” Rihanna said. “When you become a mom there’s something that happens where you feel like you can take on the world and can do anything. The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world. As scary as it was, because I haven’t been on stage in seven years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all. It’s important for me to do this year. It’s important for my son to see that.”

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Rihanna said the biggest challenge in creating her Super Bowl halftime show has been nailing down a setlist. The show will run 13 minutes, but Rihanna has a career that spans eight albums and 17 years. Cramming all of that material into 13 minutes has been “difficult,” she said.