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In a clip posted on social media on Thursday, the “Young Money Rapper”, Lil Wayne emotionally expressed how he felt after not being selected to perform during the 2025 Super bowl. “First of all I wanna say forgive me for the delay,” he began. “I had to get strength enough to do this without breaking.” He then thanked everybody who spoke up for him and reached out to him, adding, “Your words turn into arms that held me up when I tried to fall back.”
He continued, accepting responsibility for not mentally preparing himself for the announcement. “I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown and for just automatically mentally putting myself in that position; like somebody told me that was my position,” Wayne said. “But I thought there was nothing better than that. That stage and that platform in my city. So that hurt. It hurt a whole lot.”
He went ahead to thank his supporters. “But y’all. Y’all are f###### amazing,” he added, “It made me feel like s### not getting this opportunity. But when I felt like s###, you guys reminded me that I ain’t s### without y’all. And that’s an amazing reality.” The rapper admitted, “It broke me,” adding, “I’m just tryna put me back together.” He concluded, “I feel like I let all of y’all down by not getting that opportunity. But I’m working on me, and I’m working. So, thank you.” This comes after Kendrick Lamar was chosen to perform instead of Lil Wayne, despite New Orleans being his hometown.
Earlier this year, Lil Wayne expressed his desire to headline the Super Bowl Halftime show. “I will not lie to you, I have not got a call,” Wayne said around the 23-minute mark during the February interview. “But we all praying, we keeping our fingers crossed. I’m working hard. I’m going to make sure this next album and everything I do is killer, so I’m going make it very hard for them to…I want to just make it hard for them not to highlight the boy. During this interview, he highlighted that acts are picked based on legacy and not a “hot single.” Some rappers, outside the Young Money family have spoken out in defense of Wayne as well, including Master P, Boosie Badazz, Cam’ron and Mase.
