Lil Jon appeared alongside Usher at the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show last weekend, as the two (and Ludacris) delivered the energy with their performance of “Yeah” — which served as the grand finale in Usher’s headlining set.
However, fans had been theorizing that Justin Bieber would have been one of the special guests, and Lil Jon recently opened up to TMZ about why that didn’t happen.
“We wanted to put Justin in the show, so we had the idea of doing a version of the show with Justin in it,” Lil Jon said. “I think Justin just wasn’t really ready to—that’s a lot of rehearsal, a lot of time, and a lot of eyeballs, and I don’t know if he was ready to do all of that, you know what I mean? But he was definitely there supporting us, and they’re really good friends.”
“He was there with his wife having a good time and, you know, it’s a lot of time you have to dedicate to being in a show like this,” he added. “It’s not just, ‘Okay, let’s go do one rehearsal’ and you get onstage. It’s a lot of time that’s dedicated, so I don’t know if he was ready to do all of that.”
Although Bieber’s appearance didn’t wind up working out, a source told Page Six that there are no hard feelings between Usher and him about it.
Check out Lil Jon discussing the halftime show above.