There are halftime musical performances. Then, there’s Prince at Super Bowl XLI. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Carl Lewis. On Thanksgiving Day 2023, another entry was made in the history of halftime shows. Unfortunately for Jack Harlow, this performance landed on the wrong end of the spectrum.
Harlow, a 25-year-old rapper who went platinum with his debut album, Thats What They All Say in 2020, was tabbed to perform at halftime during Fox’s coverage of their game this year, which featured the Detroit Lions against the longtime rival Green Bay Packers. He’s one of three artists performing on Thanksgiving, as Dolly Parton and Steve Aoki will perform in Dallas and Seattle this evening.
So Harlow had a standard to set. Fortunately for both Aoki and Parton, clearing the bar won’t take much.
To call the performance “lifeless” might actually be an understatement. While the Ford Field crowd had no problem bellowing out their voices during the Lions game, the tens of thousands in attendance sounded like they’d rather be elsewhere.
If the listless crowd during Harlow’s hollow performance wasn’t enough to convince you how this went, maybe the chorus of viewers at home will convey the message.
Some couldn’t help themselves, wishing for a finer time in life.
Others were more emphatic with their thoughts on it.
It was truly a mystifyingly bad halftime performance. It’s not to bag on Harlow entirely: He wasn’t helped out by the set or the lack of oomph to his performance, either.
Fox happened to delete their post of the performance, which may say it all without saying it all.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022