As Green Day took to the stage to kick start the 2026 Super Bowl, all eyes were on the band as fans expected an explosive political statement that never came to fruition.
Well known for being a vocal advocate for causes he believes in, many had expected frontman Billie Joe Armstrong to make a bold statement addressing some of the polarizing issues currently affecting the United States.
In particular, fans had expected him to take aim at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, as he had previously launched a scathing attack upon them just two days prior to his opening performance.
In the run-up to Super Bowl LX, Armstrong went to great pains to reiterate that just because they were performing on one of the biggest stages in American sport, it didn’t mean they would remain silent - yet this is exactly what transpired.
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Long gone was his political outrage over ICE enforcement activity, or his criticisms of the Trump administration - in fact, the performance was nothing short of uneventful as the band reeled through some of their greatest hits to energise the crowd.
This apolitical approach was a far cry from the passionate speech Armstrong had given during a Spotify and FanDuel sponsored Super Bowl party held Friday night on San Francisco’s Pier 29.
“To all the ICE agents out there, wherever you are, quit your s****y-a** job. Quit that s****y job you have,” Armstrong said. “Because when this is over, and it will be over at some point in time, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Donald Trump, they’re gonna drop you like a bad f***ing habit. Come on this side of the line.”
The remarks were made during a private, invitation-only concert, and were not controlled or sanctioned by the NFL which may explain why the singer was more vocal with his views.
At the same concert he also utilized a number of lyric changes, which included ‘I’m not part of the MAGA agenda’ during a performance of ‘American Idiot’ and even a reference to Jeffrey Epstein in ‘Holiday’, when he changed the line ‘the representative from California has the floor’ to ‘the representative from Epstein Island has the floor’.
Unsurprisingly, none of these changes made it to the actual Super Bowl performance, with Armstrong and his bandmates toeing the line by sticking to their usual lyrics - although they did manage to drop an f-bomb mid-set, which was swiftly censored out by NBC.
All eyes have now turned towards Bad Bunny’s highly anticipated halftime show.
How much do artists get paid for the Super Bowl halftime show?
While you’d think that performing on one of the biggest stages in the world would earn you the big bucks, surprisingly, artists do not receive a direct paycheck for the Super Bowl halftime show.
“We do not pay the artists,” NFL spokesperson Joanna Hunter told Forbes in 2016. “We cover expenses and production costs.”
Meanwhile, Brian McCarthy, the NFL's vice president of communications, confirmed that Super Bowl performers do get a ‘union scale’ - a minimum wage guaranteed by a union contract.
This is largely because the halftime show is not just a performance, it’s a money can’t buy opportunity for promotion and exposure.
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Topics: Celebrity, Super Bowl, Music
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