Time to cash in! Mickey Guyton sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, February 13, and her performance clocked in at one minute and 51 seconds.
Sports fans have been betting on the length of the national anthem at the Super Bowl for years, in addition to more traditional bets about the actual football game. Ahead of the showdown between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams, most betting sites had the over-under for the 2022 national anthem set at one minute and 35 seconds.
Last year’s anthem singers, Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church, went well over that length with their rendition of the song, which clocked in at 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Theirs was the longest performance of the national anthem at the Super Bowl since 2013, when Alicia Keys took 2 minutes and 35 minutes to complete the song.
After Guyton, 38, landed the 2022 gig, she told The Los Angeles Times that she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” so often in high school that she became known as the “national anthem girl” among her classmates.
“The first time I sung it was at a basketball game when I was 13, and I kept my eyes closed the whole time,” the “Remember Her Name” songstress recalled. “But then they asked me to sing at every game after that.”
In the same interview, Guyton pointed to Whitney Houston‘s iconic 1991 performance at Super Bowl XXV as one of her all-time favorites. “I’ve heard a lot of anthems, but I feel like she evoked the truest meaning of America when she sang it,” the Grammy nominee said. “I felt so proud to be an American after that. I was like, ‘Yes! America!’ That’s what I want, to feel that again. I want everyone to feel that again.”
Ahead of Sunday’s performance, Guyton didn’t hesitate to call out social media trolls who claimed she got the gig because of her race. “This is what I see in my mentions on a daily basis. It never stops,” the “Black Like Me” singer wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, February 9, alongside a screenshot of a hateful message about her. “But guess what. I will never stop.”
The commenter claimed that the Texas native was being “used as a prop,” but Guyton — and her famous friends and colleagues — didn’t let the insult stand. “Imagine being here just to write & make music that brings people joy and connection and you have THIS to contend with every. damn. day,” Maren Morris wrote in an Instagram Story responding to the screenshot. “@mickeyguyton you are loved and playing the damn SUPER BOWL this week.”
