Usher is gearing up for his first Super Bowl Halftime show, and he’s been saying it’s a show “30 years in the making.” He also recently revealed that he once thought about leaving the music industry. He considered changing careers at the time due to a lull in his musical success.
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“I hadn’t had a successful record as successful as [2004’s] Confessions, and there was this analyzing [thought], like, ‘Man, should I continue to do this, or should I pivot and become an actor?’” he told The Hollywood Reporter recently. He eventually talked himself out of it, telling himself, “No, I want to do what I really love.”
He then launched his residency, My Way, in Las Vegas in 2021, which extended into 2023. Usher recently said farewell to his Vegas stage, but he’s not going away anytime soon. From the residency he’s going to the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“I went to Las Vegas with no promise in a time when the world was not going anywhere because we were in a pandemic, and [I] had the hope that I could arouse people enough to come to Las Vegas and celebrate with me,” he said. “And it turned into, not only the most successful moments of Las Vegas history, but one of the most successful moments in my life.”
Usher is “Happy and Blessed” to be Performing at the Super Bowl
Usher also had some grateful words about his Halftime performance and what it means to him to be on that stage 30 years into his career.
“And then to play the Super Bowl, that right there is a virtuous story of belief in self,” he continued. “I’m a 45-year-old artist who has found my way into an incredible moment as a result of belief in myself and the fact that I didn’t let anything deter it, no matter what it looked like, no matter what the comparison to previous albums were. I didn’t care about none of that.
He went on, “I was like, ‘I believe in making quality, and quality performance matters. I want to go to Las Vegas where I can spread my wings and be creative and do things the way I want to do them; not just wait for a successful album in hopes that I’m going to be able to put together a tour and travel the world.’”
Usher added, “the crescendo of that is the f—ing Super Bowl. Man, I’m so happy and blessed.”
Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
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