NEW YORK — Five months before Super Bowl LXI, the company the NFL pays to book its halftime show has no headliner, and the man who runs it may have to fill the slot himself, according to a Daily Mail report published Friday.
The paper cited an unnamed source close to Jay-Z and the league who said “nobody wants the burden to do the show.” The slot pays no fee, and Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny both drew heavy criticism for taking it. The source said a multi-artist show is very likely and that Jay-Z, now touring for the 30th anniversary of “Reasonable Doubt,” is floating his own name to show others it is safe. An announcement planned for this month could slip to November.
The immediate trigger, the Mail reported, was this week’s Ed Sheeran tour blowup. After Macklemore used his opening set to voice support for Palestinians, Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other NFL owners told Sheeran to drop him or lose his stadium dates. Sheeran complied, then lost his band and support acts. Artists now fear that kind of backlash and the displeasure of President Donald Trump, the source said. The Mail said it sought comment from Roc Nation and the NFL, and none of it is confirmed. The game is Feb. 14 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
The report treats the problem as political. It leaves out a simpler one. Roc Nation, which has picked the halftime act since 2019, comes to the table carrying more legal baggage than ever.
A Loss in Court Last Week
On Sept. 9, California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the dismissal of Jay-Z’s extortion and defamation suit against Houston attorney Tony Buzbee. Buzbee represented a woman who alleged in 2024 that Shawn Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party in 2000, when she was 13. Carter called the claim a blackmail attempt and denied it. The woman dropped her case with prejudice in February 2025, after a suspicious series of events. Now Carter’s attorneys are claiming that the victims attorney told her that Carter would have her killed if she did not drop the lawsuit.
Carter then went after her lawyer, with Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel leading the charge. A Los Angeles judge threw the suit out under California’s anti-SLAPP law in June 2025, and the appeals court agreed that Buzbee’s demand letters were protected. The panel said its ruling does not decide whether the accusation was true. A winning anti-SLAPP defendant is entitled to attorney’s fees. We covered the ruling, and the original dismissal.
Roc Nation as Defendant
The company’s docket is crowded. All of the following are allegations unless noted, and Roc Nation disputes them.
- Houston. Buzbee sued Roc Nation and Quinn Emanuel in December 2024, alleging operatives posing as state investigators offered his former clients money to sue his firm. Roc Nation dismissed the suit as a distraction. A federal court sent the cases back to Texas state court last September.
- New York, racketeering. Terrance Dixon, Fat Joe’s former hype man, named Roc Nation in a pending federal suit that accuses it of helping launder money and shield criminal activity. We detailed the filing last year.
- New York, employment. On Aug. 7, U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods ruled that a jury could find Roc Nation jointly employed Megan Thee Stallion’s former photographer, Emilio Garcia, because it exercised “a high degree of control” over his schedule, pay and work. Twelve of his 16 claims are headed to trial. Roc Nation is seeking leave to appeal. A separate sex discrimination suit was filed Aug. 22.
- Miami. Chief executive Desiree Perez and Roc Nation are being sued by Perez’s daughter, who says her mother had her involuntarily committed on false claims. Perez has sued the daughter’s husband, alleging abuse.
The Megan Thee Stallion case
Roc Nation also surfaces in Tory Lanez’s challenge to his conviction. An LAPD report attached to his August habeas petition shows Perez was on the phone, with Alex Spiro, for Megan’s first statement to detectives. Texts in the same filing show Megan’s lawyer inviting the trial prosecutors to her film premiere and adding, “I have Roc contact if issues.”
An Old Pattern
Carter’s partnership with the NFL began in controversy. When it was announced in August 2019, critics accused him of giving the league cover while Colin Kaepernick remained unsigned. His record includes a 2001 guilty plea to misdemeanor assault for stabbing a record executive. Carter’s name appears in an FBI document released with the Epstein files. That document records an allegation, not a finding, and Carter has not been charged with a sex crime, yet.
None of this means artists are declining because of who is asking. The Mail’s source blames politics, and the league’s owners just showed what happens to a performer who steps out of line. But an artist weighing an unpaid turn on music’s biggest stage also has to weigh the company that comes with it.
Sources: Daily Mail; theJasmineBRAND; Courthouse News Service; CNN; Garcia v. Roc Nation LLC, No. 1:24-cv-07587 (S.D.N.Y.), Dkt. 176; Dixon v. Cartagena, No. 1:25-cv-05144 (S.D.N.Y.); Hadley v. Perez, No. 1:25-cv-22162 (S.D. Fla.); In re Daystar Peterson, No. B356717 (Cal. Ct. App.); Paul Smith’s reporting at Shockya.
Related coverage
- Jay-Z loses appeal to Tony Buzbee
- The Epstein web that connects Jay-Z, Diddy and Alex Spiro
- “Bullet fragments were never found”: prosecutor’s text surfaces in new Tory Lanez petition
- Musk’s lawyer threatens Alex Gibney. Alex Spiro’s own record is a story, too.
This is an opinion article.