No nips were slipped during Sunday night’s Super Bowl halftime show, but one of the performers managed to sneak in a whole other obscene gesture – and shockingly, it wasn’t Madonna.
While taking the stage alongside the artist who also goes as Madge (and occasionally, Esther), singer M.I.A. (real name Mathangi Arulpragasam) gave the middle finger to camera. NBC quickly pulled away from the “Paper Planes” singer, but not before she managed to mouth, “I don’t give a s---.”
NBC is speaking out about the incident today, obviously embarrassed that, like CBS after the 2004 Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake Super Bowl scandal (in which Timberlake revealed Janet’s bare breast as he sang the last lines of his hit “Rock Your Body”), it was tricked into featuring something offensive during the most-watched TV event of the year.
The Super Bowl brings in 100 million viewers in the United States alone.
"We apologize for the inappropriate gesture that aired during halftime," NBC said in a press statement Monday. "It was a spontaneous gesture that our delay system caught late."
CBS made the same claims following Jackson and Timberlake’s so-called “wardrobe malfunction” (a.k.a. “Nipplegate”) and was slapped with a $550,000 fine by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and taken to court. The lawsuit has since been lifted.
The NFL released its own statement this morning, and it is putting all the blame on NBC, hoping not to be culpable for another scandal.
“There was a failure in NBC's delay system," the NFL said of the flipped bird. "The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans."
The rest of the halftime show was relatively tame. Kicking off with an extravagant, Egyptian-themed performance of “Vogue,” the nearly 13-minute performance was a visually impressive yet lip-synched mishmash of Madonna hits (“Music,” “Open Your Heart”).
In addition to M.I.A. – who appeared to perform Madonna’s new song, “Give Me All Your Luvin,” alongside rapper Nicki Minaj – guest stars included notorious party rockers LMFAO (“Sexy and I Know It”) and The Voice judge Cee-Lo Green (“Forget You”), who donned a black sparkly gospel sheath to assist Madge on “Like a Prayer.” The over-the-top pop routine ended with a fireworks show, projecting the words “World Peace” on the field.
Did you see M.I.A. flip the bird? Do you think it warrants a FCC investigation? Or should we just forget about it and move on? Comment below.
Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook