One of the 400 performers in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show was detained on the field for unfurling a combined Sudanese-Palestinian flag, The Associated Press reports. The protest gesture was unplanned, according to spokespeople for the NFL and the show’s producer, Roc Nation. The New Orleans Police Department said it was “working to determine applicable charges.”
The performer pulled off the action by concealing the flag on their person and unveiling it while standing atop a prop car late in the show. The NFL said “no one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent,” adding that the protestor would be banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events. The flag appears not to have made it to the broadcast.
Elsewhere, there was controversy aplenty during the scheduled performance, as Lamar riffed on Drake’s “Not Like Us” lawsuit, enlisted his rival’s ex Serena Williams as a dancer, and led the crowd in a singalong of the diss track’s most inflammatory lyrics.
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