As Rihanna took the stage on Superbowl Sunday, Feb. 12, to perform live at the halftime show, there was a lot of speculation on whether Rihanna was pregnant or just holding on to some baby weight from her last child, who she had nine months ago.  The rumors of Rihanna being pregnant were confirmed to be true with lots of rubbing and holding of her belly and later the confirmation in words by her publicist.

According to Google Trends, Rihanna was searched on google more than 10 million times with the most popular searches being “Is Rihanna pregnant?” and other phrases involving her speculated pregnancy. 

Rihanna’s outfit was designed perfectly by her stylist to either conceal or reveal her pregnancy as he didn’t know she would be revealing it until the last minute. 

A few SSU students watched the halftime show and had a couple things to say on the performance and the pregnancy announcement. “The pregnancy announcement was kinda over the top like why not be a normal person and post it on instagram?” said Aadil Jadwet, 24. 

Paulina Vaclav, 21, thought the complete opposite. “I thought it was a great way to show off that she’s pregnant.”

Both students had something to say on the theme of the show. “The theme of the show resembled the game Super Smash Bros. I was dying,” said Jadwet. 

“It definitely puts the viewers’ perspective strictly and easily onto Rihanna with the colors. The theme was great, I mean it was a little sad since I knew her mainly for her music and thought she would drop a new song but, it was a great way to throw back and show off her amazing music that everyone knows and loves,” said Vaclav.

When asked about what she thought when first seeing her on stage, Vaclav said, “Immediately I thought she was pregnant, but as I’m working on changing my perspective about that stuff, I then resolved to her just being her ‘baby fat,’ as others like to put it.” 

Jadwet said, “When I saw her at the halftime show I automatically said to everyone she was pregnant and we were all in shock.”

Vaclav had a great time watching Rihanna’s performance. “I was having a great time listening and watching her perform. I was only like 14 when her last album came out so listening to her music choices that day brought back so many memories.” Jadwet thought that some things could be improved. “The halftime show could have been better in my opinion. She could have brought out Drake and Jay-Z.” 

While Jadwet thinks that Rihanna’s music is “just as relevant today” and doesn’t make much of a difference to him that she didn’t release music in so long, Vaclav has a different perspective. “It might be hard for her since it’s been like 7 years, picking anything back up from 7 years ago is never easy for anyone but I’m proud of her.”

Rihanna’s pregnancy announcement was certainly unexpected and shocked a lot of people watching the show. It was definitely an eye-catching performance that caused a lot of speculation and is still being talked about by viewers of the show and people who didn’t get the chance to watch it.