Many fans of legendary parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic would love to see him performing live at the Super Bowl for the sporting event’s halftime show, but it’s not something the “Eat It” singer will be holding his breath on. Going back several years now, there have been different petitions of fans banding together hoping to convince the powers that be at the NFL to invite Yankovic to perform at the big game. Some of these petitions have gotten pretty popular, reaching six-digit numbers, but as of yet, they have not been successful in making the performance come to fruition.
In a new interview with Variety, Yankovic commented on the possibility of playing the Super Bowl halftime show. He says he doesn’t imagine the NFL will ever invite him to headline the halftime show performance, though he teases that perhaps he could pop up on stage if he ever has some of his famous friends playing. With that said, Yankovic divulges that he’d feel intimidated by that gig in the first place, concerned about the backlash that some football fans might have over him being there.
“I’m just being real here. I just don’t see it ever happening. Maybe the Foo Fighters will do it and have me on as a special guest… That kind of stage scares me for a number of reasons. One of which is, no matter who you are, when you’re put in front of that many eyeballs, you’re going to have a lot of haters. And I know I don’t like being hated.”
“Weird Al” Yankovic Probably Won’t Perform at the Super Bowl
These days, Yankovic isn’t spending quite as much time in the studio as he used to, as he enjoys the freedom that comes with not being locked down by a record contract. He spoke about how he opted not to sign any more once he completed the obligations of his last contract in 2014, as it allows him to have more freedom with his music endeavors. Yankovic also likes being able to release songs immediately when he makes them rather than keeping them on standby for an album’s release some time later, making certain songs less timely.
“I just don’t want to sign under the contract. I like being a free agent and doing whatever I need to do or want to do. I’m more into one-off stuff now. Because when you do an album, if you’re doing my kind of material, it’s hard to have 12 songs ready to go all at once and have them all be topical and timely. I like having the freedom of being able to just put out material whenever I feel like it. Granted, I haven’t done a lot of that since 2014.”
Meanwhile, Yankovic has gotten back into the film industry. The UHF star teamed up with director Eric Appel to write WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, a parody biopic starring Daniel Radcliffe as Yankovic. It was released on The Roku Channel last year.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
