Alicia Keys fumbled during the Super Bowl, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the NFL’s YouTube channel.
Keys, 43, joined Usher during the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show on Sunday, February 11. In case you missed it, her voice cracked a little when she sang the opening notes of “If I Ain’t Got You,” which many viewers pointed out online. “Me seeing Alicia Keys but then she hit that first note,” commented one X user. “Alicia Keys sounded like that was her first time opening her mouth that day,” posted another on X.
However, when the NFL uploaded a video of the entire halftime performance to its YouTube channel one day after the big game, Keys’ off-key moment was no longer there.
X user Robert Komaniecki, a college music theory teacher with a sizable following on the platform, pointed out how the NFL’s YouTube channel has attempted “to erase that little moment” while explaining why they should keep the flub in. “Part of what makes live singing commendable is that mistakes may happen, and you’re vulnerable,” wrote the educator.
Keys opened up her halftime cameo with “If I Ain’t Got You,” a song from 2004 that featured Usher on one of its remixes. From there, she and the “Yeah!” singer sang their duet, “My Boo,” which came from his career-defining album, 2004’s Confessions.
At the end of the song, Usher, 45, hugged Keys from behind in an intimate embrace, which became another eyebrow-raising moment from the performance. Keys has been married to Swizz Beats since 2010, and some viewers wondered if there was more to that hug.
Beats, whose real name is Kasseem Daoud Dean, was not one of them. Instead, the 45-year-old rapper and producer celebrated his wife’s performance. “Y’all talking about the wrong damn thing !!! y’all don’t see that amazing dress covering the entire stadium,” he wrote via Instagram, referring to the massive cape that billowed off of Keys at the start of her performance.
“Congrats [Usher] and my love [Alicia] that song is a classic,” he added. “We don’t do negative vibes on this side. We make history.”
Beats had no reason to worry. During the Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas, Usher and his longtime girlfriend, Jenn Goicoechea, tied the knot, becoming the latest celebrity couple to get hitched in Sin City. Goicoechea, 40, and Usher have been together for five years and have two children: daughter Sovereign, 3, and son Sire, 2.
