Oh cheek, that was unexpected, and it was over quickly. Thousands at Houston’s Reliant Stadium and millions watching television watched Janet Jackson’s right breast pop out of her costume. Previously, Jackson’s co-singer Justin Timberlake intoned the line “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song” while pulling on the singer. The costume tore, revealing the jeweled right breast. Was the nude scene planned or was it all an accident? Huge excitement at the Super Bowl.
If this show had taken place at a normal concert, nothing else would have happened. But the performance took place at the 38th Super Bowl, the football finale, an event for the whole family where musicians perform during breaks. Now the viewers were up in arms against the “indecent exposure” and the telephone line of the CBS television station was no longer standing still. One citizen even filed a lawsuit.
“Nipplegate”
CBS and the participating MTV, even representatives of the National Football League (NFL) publicly apologized. There was previously a dispute between the sports association and the television broadcasters. The NFL says MTV will never be allowed to broadcast the Super Bowl again. Parent company Viacom, which owns CBS and MTV, was later fined $550,000.
The performance of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake went down in history as “Nipplegate” – the term is a modification of the “Watergate affair” and stands for scandals of a state-endangering extent. Jackson himself admitted in a later interview that the action was planned and not an accident. However, Timberlake should have only pulled on the corset, not the bra. But now every viewer could see that the singer also adorns herself on parts of her body that are normally not visible to millions.
The television networks learned their lessons from “Nipplegate.” From now on, award ceremonies like the Oscars will only be broadcast with a time delay so that if there is a threat of a chest attack or something similar, they can quickly be hidden or cut.
Later, other stars also recognized the potential of the Super Bowl family event to provoke. During Madonna’s performance in 2012, her co-singer MIA held up her middle finger. There were largely no spectator protests in view of this “Fingergate”. Nevertheless, the National Football League was forced to apologize again. The middle finger from MIA came up so quickly, you couldn’t cut the scene out fast enough.