Jay Z and Beyonce may have been taking a stand at the Super Bowl — by staying in their seats.
As TMZ reported, the couple decided not to stand during the national anthem at Super Bowl LIV and kept daughter Blue Ivy in the seats with them. The rapper has been in the center of controversy due to his partnership with the NFL, which has some accusing him of turning his back on Colin Kaepernick and the movement he started to protest police brutality against minorities by taking a knee during the anthem.
As the report noted, the music power couple made what looked to be a conscious decision to stay in their seats during the anthem on Sunday.
“The Carters were sitting together a few rows back from the field, and they clearly didn’t make an effort to get up during Demi Lovato’s performance,” the report noted.
“A guy who appears to be a bodyguard of theirs was standing though, as was pretty much everyone else around them.”
It’s not clear yet what Jay Z and Beyonce intended, but the pair have teamed up with the NFL to raise awareness for the causes Kaepernick has supported, including criminal justice reform. But Jay Z also took some heat for the partnership, with some critics saying that he was betraying Kaepernick, who had filed a lawsuit against the NFL claiming that owners were colluding to keep him out of the league after his national anthem protest.
On Saturday, The New York Times published an interview with the rapper, who talked about how it was worth taking some bad press in order to raise awareness for the cause.
“As long as real people are being hurt and marginalized and losing family members, then yes, I can take a couple rounds of negative press,” he said.
Jay Z added that he felt the need to pick up the torch, hinting that Kaepernick would likely not be returning to the NFL again after more than three seasons out of the league.
“No one is saying he hasn’t been done wrong. He was done wrong,” the rapper said.
“I would understand if it was three months ago. But it was three years ago and someone needs to say, ‘What do we do now — because people are still dying?”
Kaepernick has made attempts to return to the league. Last year, he held a public workout that was originally proposed and planned by the NFL, but he scrapped plans at the last second amid what he called unrealistic demands, instead holding his own workout.
The report noted that Jay Z’s Roc Nation asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to commit to the league spending $100 million on social justice outreach through the partnership.
