Gloria Estefan appeared on Watch What Happens Live on Tuesday (June 21), where she weighed in on Jennifer Lopez and Shakira‘s 2020 joint Super Bowl Halftime performance.
Host Andy Cohen asked Estefan her reaction to Lopez’s Netflix documentary, Halftime, in which the “Waiting for Tonight” singer expressed frustration over having two superstar headliners with limited time each for a roughly 14-minute set. “This is the worst idea in the world to have two people do the Super Bowl. It was the worst idea in the world,” Lopez says at one point, stressing while conceptualizing how to mix several of her hit tracks into six minutes.
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“I haven’t seen the doc yet, but I heard about it,” Estefan replied. “Look, this is the bottom line. You have very little time. You have 12 minutes or something to get things on and off the set. So, could you do it one person? Yes, but I think they wanted to throw a Miami, Latin extravaganza and they wanted to pack in as much as possible. They killed it. That was an amazing show.”
When Cohen mentioned that Estefan herself was also asked to perform, the “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” singer joked, “Imagine what JLo would have said if I had been a third? I literally would have come out, like, ‘Come and shake your body,’ and out.”
“Look, it’s their moment,” Estefan concluded. “They’re in a whole other thing. I’ve done a couple of Super Bowls and I didn’t want to go on a diet in December. It was Christmas!”
Lopez’s manager, Benny Medina, appeared in the documentary to provide perspective on the matter, and shares that often, Super Bowl performers have the option to choose which guests they would like to bring out during their set. “Typically, you have one headliner at a Super Bowl. That headliner constructs a show, and, should they choose to have other guests, that’s their choice,” he says in the film. “It was an insult to say you needed two Latinas to do the job that one artist historically has done.”