
Kanye West seems to think Taylor Swift is the invisible hand that’s kept him off the Super Bowl halftime stage. In a recently deleted post on X, the 47-year-old rapper opened up about why he believes he’s never been offered the coveted spotlight, despite decades of musical influence.
He came up with reasoning which seemed like a cocktail of controversy and bad blood and some political and some personal.
Why Kanye West Thinks He’s Been Blacklisted
According to the Daily Mail, the Yeezy founder pointed to three pivotal moments that he believes shut the Super Bowl door on him – “George Bush don’t care about Black people. The Taylor Swift movement moment. Wearing a MAGA hat.”
Together, he says, they’ve marked him as too hot to handle, even before he “went full Nazi.” And while he once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Rihanna at a pre-Super Bowl concert in 2015, that’s been the closest he’s ever come to halftime glory.
TRENDING: Kanye West says that Taylor Swift is the reason he’s not allowed to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.
“I never was allowed to do the Super Bowl because of 3 moments
George Bush don’t care about black people
The Taylor Swift movement moment
Wearing a MAGA hat” pic.twitter.com/hK8sWq9d2j
— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) April 9, 2025
Trending
Kanye West vs Taylor Swift: A Feud That Refuses to Die
The tension with Swift, now 35, hasn’t exactly cooled over the years. It kicked off back in 2009, when Kanye snatched the mic during her VMA win, sparking what would become a saga of public spats, contradictory accounts, and leaked phone calls.
In a now-infamous moment, West stormed the stage and cut off 19-year-old Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video, awarded for You Belong With Me, which had been up against Beyonce’s Single Ladies.
Kanye emerged on the stage and took the microphone from Taylor, telling her, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all-time! One of the best videos of all-time.”
12. MTV Kanye west interrupting Taylor swift during her acceptance speech at MTV Video Music Awards
— Nungua Burnaboy (@views09_) March 12, 2025
While they tried to make peace later at various points, things boiled over again in 2016 with Kanye’s track Famous, which reignited their war of words.
Jay-Z’s Influence Over Halftime Show Decisions
However, the Swift situation isn’t the only block Kanye sees in his path. Jay-Z, once a close collaborator, has been calling the halftime shots since Roc Nation’s NFL partnership began in 2019. Their relationship soured around 2016, and Kanye hasn’t helped matters as he recently took a nasty swipe at Jay-Z and Beyonce’s kids in another now-deleted post, further burning that bridge.
Meanwhile, Swift, despite never headlining the Super Bowl herself, reportedly has ‘Jay-Z’s full blessing’, but for now she appears to be waiting for the right moment and more specifically, for her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s NFL retirement.
Taylor Swift toasting with Jay-Z after Beyoncé’s Album of the Year win at the #Grammys pic.twitter.com/kbxF5sZ2zW
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) February 3, 2025
According to insiders, she doesn’t want to split focus between performing and cheering him on. “She doesn’t want to do it now until Travis is fully retired as she would like to be at the game supporting him rather than performing at it,” the insider said. “When she eventually performs at it, she wants all her loved ones to be able to experience it. And as long as Travis is in the league, the Chiefs have a chance to be in the game, so she is going to wait to do it till he is officially done.”
Previously, her endorsement deal with Coca-Cola was a roadblock while Pepsi sponsored the halftime show, making a Swift performance unlikely. Now that the sponsor has changed, the only thing standing between her and the biggest stage in sports is her boyfriend’s career timeline.
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