It’s the 50th anniversary of the US Open. Last night, Kelly Clarkson performed a six song medley at Flushing Meadows, telling the enthusiastic crowd that “I love opening for Serena Williams”. 

God I love her. Don’t we all love her? We love her here at LaineyGossip. And I’m pretty sure “we” applies to pretty much everyone everywhere. Do you listen to the Keep It! podcast? Last episode, Ira Madison III, Kara Brown, and Louis Virtel were talking about how some troll wrote an Aretha Franklin article recently, trying to bullsh-t some theory that Kelly Clarkson might be a better singer and they were all like, keep Kelly out of it. She would never want to be part of this stupid conversation, and that’s when Kara, hilariously but seriously, was like, Kelly Clarkson is my favourite white woman, next to Celine Dion.

The point is…Kelly Clarkson is one of those rare entertainers who isn’t polarising and she isn’t bland. That doesn’t happen often, right? You either care deeply about Kelly or you like her, but you never hate her nor are you bored by her. So I guess that’s why, following her performance last night, there are people who are now campaigning for her to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. 

Well, she definitely has the catalogue. I can imagine thousands of people screaming along to “Since You Been Gone” and “My Life Would Suck Without You” and “Stronger” and “Love So Soft” and here I’ll join Kathleen in nagging you to make her latest album, Meaning of Life, a part of your life because it is AMAZING. And, given the reputation that I just mentioned, the fact that she’s beloved and not super controversial, she’d certainly meet the NFL’s requirements for the kind of artist featured on their biggest night. But…

Is that what we want for Kelly? 

First of all, from a business perspective, Kelly’s development deal for her talk show is with NBCUniversal and the Super Bowl is a CBS property. That might be a factor? Beyond business though…

Do we want Kelly to be associated with what the NFL stands for right now? Justin Timberlake was the halftime performer last year, to promote Man of the Woods. As you know, nobody wanted to f-ck with that album. Which is why, as I wrote at the time, JT and the NFL were the perfect match: an artist in decline and a league in decline. Sure, the NFL is still the biggest pro sports league in North America, but the ratings are steadily dropping and they’re already projecting that this upcoming season’s ratings may be trending the same way. I’m not sure Kelly Clarkson needs to be stepping into that. I’m not sure I want her to.