Eminem Kneeled During The Superbowl Halftime Show — Now Everyone Wants To Know Why
Many wonder if this is in support of Kaepernick's 2016 knee.
Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock / YouTube The outcome of Superbowl LVI has Rams fans cheering and Bengals fans distraught, but the conversation following the game has been dominated by the events of the halftime show.
When Eminem took the stage to join Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent, the rapper made quite a significant gesture.
Mid-performance, Eminem was seen taking a knee, leaving fans to wonder whether he did so symbolically.
Why did Eminem kneel during the Superbowl halftime show?
Taking a knee at an NFL game has become culturally significant ever since 2016 when former football star Colin Kaepernick first began kneeling during the national anthem at the start of games in protest of police brutality and racial inequality in the United States.
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By 2017, Kaepernick had been pushed out of the NFL.
Eminem has previously shown solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
In 2017, during the BET Hip Hop Awards, Eminem called out Donald Trump — who infamously suggested the NFL should fire Kaepernick — and supported Kaepernick's protest.
"F— that, this is for Colin, ball up a fist and keep that s— balled like Donald the b—-." he rapped.
That same year, he released "Untouchable" which contained another nod to Kaepernick.
"Somebody has to be the sacrificial lamb ... So they call it a Kaepernick tantrum ... If you don't stand for the national anthem ... We raise it, you better praise it."
Fans wondered if Eminem was protesting against the NFL.
The question of why Eminem kneeled during the halftime show hasn’t got an answer from the rapper himself yet, but there is a lot of speculation. Initially, some suspected that Eminem took a knee in spite of the NFL’s wishes.
However, according to the NFL, Eminem’s decision to kneel was made ahead of time and was something that they were expecting.
The a league spokesperson said of the matter, “We watched all elements of the show during multiple rehearsals this week and were aware that Eminem was going to do that.”
The NFL also clarified that anyone could have kneeled and the NFL wouldn’t have stopped them and that the performers were no different, saying, “A player or coach could have taken a knee and there would have been no repercussions, so there was no reason to tell an artist she or he could not do so.”
While some of Colin Kaepernick’s supporters have sounded off in support of Eminem’s apparent gesture, neither Kaepernick nor Eminem have commented on the halftime show move at this time.
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Dan O'Reilly is a writer who covers news, politics, and social justice. Follow him on Twitter.