A person carrying both Sudanese and Palestinian flags got tackled and removed by security while Kendrick Lamar rocked the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans on Sunday, Feb. 9.
Videos popping up on X and other social platforms caught someone running around with flags marked “Sudan” and “Gaza” in handwriting. The person managed to get close to center stage before darting between the backup dancers.
At the show, videos from onsite spectators showed security jumping in to stop the protestor, who hasn’t been named yet. The person was hauled off while Kendrick’s “TV Off” played on, though the protest didn’t make it to TV screens nationwide.
NBC News got word from an NFL spokesperson who spilled that the protestor was actually part of the show’s “field cast” and had sneakily tucked away the flag before showtime.
“We commend security for quickly detaining the individual who displayed the flag. He was a part of the 400-member field cast,” the rep said. “The individual hid the item on his possession and unveiled it late in the show. No one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent.”
The incident comes as Trump’s gotten major heat for suggesting the U.S. should “take over the Gaza Strip.” Amnesty International’s big boss Agnès Callamard blasted this idea as a straight-up breach of international law, saying Trump’s words are working to “dangerously dehumanize Palestinians.”
Navi Pillay, the head honcho of the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, didn’t mince words in Sunday’s Politico article, calling Trump’s proposed plan nothing short of “ethnic cleansing.”
