Super Bowl performances will forever be judged by Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe-malfunction’ during the 2004 half-time show.
But M.I.A – best known for the hit song Paper Planes – may finally erase the incident that shamed singer Jackson from the U.S. nation’s collective memory.
The British rapper and mother of one, 36, flipped her middle finger and swore into the camera during her rap solo as over 100 million fans around the world watched the performance.
While all eyes were on Madonna for a scandalous moment, the broadcasters were caught slightly by surprise by M.I.A and scrambled to obscure the gesture in time.
With one foot up on the podium, the 36-year-old rapped: ‘I don’t give a s***’ and pulled the rude gesture during a live performance of Madonna’s new song, Give Me All Your Luvin, alongside the pop queen and fellow rapper Nicki Minaj.
The screen briefly went blurred in what seemed like a late attempt to cut out the camera shot and Madonna, who at this point was lying on her back behind the rapper, appeared blissfully unaware of the controversial move.
The NFL, which produces the show, and the broadcaster, NBC, both apologised immediately but blamed each other for the incident.
Brian McCarthy, the league’s vice president of communications, said: ‘There was a failure in NBC’s delay system.
‘The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans.’
And NBC’s spokesperson countered: ‘The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show. Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers.’
M.I.A.’s publicists at Interscope have not commented.
But a member of M.I.A.’s camp claimed the rapper was struck with ‘a case of adrenaline.’
‘She wasn’t thinking,’ said the source, who requested anonymity but was with the artist at Lucas Oil Stadium. “It wasn’t any kind of statement.
‘She was caught in the moment and she’s incredibly sorry.”
The controversy mirrors that caused by Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during the 2004 show, which put CBS in hot water with the Federal Communications Commission.
The singer was performing with Justin Timberlake when he ripped open her costume to expose her breast for nine-sixteenths of a second, a moment for which CBS was fined $550,000 by the FCC.
Timberlake was quick to distance himself from the furore which left Jackson ostracised by the mainstream for some time after.
The network challenged the fine and last autumn, a federal appeals court ruled against the FCC despite an order from the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
The three-judge panel reviewed three decades of FCC rulings and concluded the agency was changing its policy, without warning, by fining CBS for fleeting nudity.
After last night’s incident, McCarthy said that M.I.A. had not done anything similar during rehearsals and the league had no reason to believe she would pull something like that during the actual show.
Madonna had been nervous about her performance, hoping to position herself as the queen of a new generation of pop stars with an opulent show and a sharp performance that mixed her new release with more familiar songs.
But it seems she should have been more worried about the performance of her co-star who is no stranger to controversy.
Hounslow-born M.IA. – real name Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam – is best known for her Grammy nominated song Paper Planes – which featured in film Slumdog Millionaire.
A graphic video for 2010 song Born Free was given an adults-only rating on YouTube and drew parallels with racism.
Born Free takes place in an alternate reality where people with red-hair or ‘gingers’ are rounded up by American paramilitary style gang and then executed and bombed for sport.
M.I.A. defended the work and said she felt that the work of Justin Bieber, the teen heart-throb, was more of an assault on the senses than her video.
The hip hop star, who gave birth to son Ikhyd in February 2009, is a new label-mate of Madonna’s, and it should come as no surprise that they both have new material to promote.
Madonna’s MDNA will first be issued via Interscope when it’s released in late March. While M.I.A., has just released a video for her new single Bad Girls.
In the video for the track she takes aim at Saudi Arabia’s laws which bans women from driving.
Muslim academics warned in December that allowing women to drive would ‘provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce’.
And in the video, M.I.A is seen heading a crowd of dancing women dressed in traditional Middle-Eastern dress to take part in a drag race.
In her family’s native Sri Lanka she has been accused of being ‘a cheerleader for terrorists’ – separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas – in the country’s civil war.
As the ‘only Tamil in the western media’ M.I.A says she has a responsibility to say ‘what is going on’ in the country.
But the majority of people reportedly view the rebels as ‘terrorists’ who are on the verge of being wiped out by government forces. And some Sri Lankan musicians have criticised her for ‘spreading blatant terrorist propaganda’.
Meanwhile, Madonna had declared she had to put on ‘the greatest show on earth, during the greatest show on Earth’ and she certainly didn’t disappoint.
Though she may be left more than a little put out that her labelmate has garnered the headlines today.
The singer, 53, put on an impressive performance during half-time show of the football game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.
She arrived onstage like Roman royalty when muscle-bound men carried her extravagant throne across the football field to the stage for her opening song, Vogue.
The Super Bowl, shown on NBC this year, is routinely viewed by more than 100 million people, and is the biggest TV event of the year.
