At one point in the “Halftime” documentary (via the New York Post), a fed-up Jennifer Lopez says, “This was the worst idea in the world,” referring to the fact that she was being forced to share the stage with Shakira. The documentary shows Lopez attempting to get through it and make nice, saying to Shakira over Zoom, “We can bring everybody together in this moment” — but it didn’t make rehearsals or the situation any less tense. Lopez’s manager Benny Medina got even more direct, saying, “It was an insult to think that you needed two Latinas to do the job that one artist historically has done.”
If Shakira agrees with that sentiment in private, she hasn’t said so in public. In a 2021 Cosmopolitan interview, she said, “It wasn’t an easy show to put together. There was a lot of work behind it [and] a lot of stress.” However, the singer noted that “it was one of the highlights of my career” and that she “really thought it was a great opportunity to make a strong statement about what an important part of the American fabric the Latino community is.”
