Red Hot Chili Peppers Admit to Faking Super Bowl Performance

It’s pretty much taken for granted nowadays that pop stars often are required to lip sync their parts. That’s fine and all, and it makes a little bit of sense in the context of a private show where fans paid tons of money to see an artist kill it. More often than not, these artists get away with it.  However, whichever act plays the Super Bowl is subjected to far greater levels of scrutiny.

It makes sense then that when the Red Hot Chili Peppers came out on stage without even plugging their instruments in, fans would notice. The Chili Peppers and fellow performer Bruno Mars have been receiving a great deal of hit for this stunt since the big game, and just recently bassist Flea revealed that the band was in fact faking the performance.

Flea apologized to fans and stated how surreal the entire experience was, as the only the vocals were actually performed live. According to Flea, this was required by contract by the NFL and the band was given no option to actually perform. He also noted that the Chili Peppers did not wish to trick fans; for this reason, they didn’t pretend to plug their instruments in. It seems that this is the norm for Super Bowl performances.  What do you think? Should Super Bowl performers have to actually play?