Rihanna is making headlines for her Super Bowl halftime show performance and for more than putting on a great mini-concert. After a ton of speculation from viewers (and some disappointment in the lack of guest appearances), the singer confirmed she’s pregnant with her second child less than a year after she and boyfriend A$AP Rocky welcomed the birth of their first son.

Many noticed Rihanna seemed less energetic than normal and stans were quick to criticize her 13-minute performance. Some of her critics backed off when the singer’s team confirmed she was expecting, but still some were not satisfied with Rihanna’s halftime performance. The popstar confessed it was difficult to settle on a setlist that would make fans happy but the main complaint viewers had was not about her song choices but whether she was singing at all.

The Super Bowl halftime show has a long history, and shows have only become more elaborate as the years go by. Performers are expected to put on a concert of their greatest hits and viewers long for spectacle. Rihanna’s halftime extravaganza was no different and featured a complex stage setup, backup dancers, and a 12-song setlist. Was lip syncing part of why her show felt off to some fans?

Did Rihanna lip sync her halftime show performance?

We’re unlikely to get confirmation either way, but the Super Bowl has famously had incidents where performers mimed their halftime performances in the past. During the 2014 Super Bowl, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea came under fire when viewers realized his bass guitar was not plugged in to an amplifier, making it obvious there was no way he could be heard over the roar of the crowd. A couple days after the show, Flea wrote a post on the band’s website, confirming he did not play live. In his post, Flea wrote that while singer Anthony Kiedis did sing live, the other members of the band were told to pre-record their parts in advance.

There are a lot of reasons why Super Bowl performers would choose to pre-record aspects of their performances. Halftime show stars are under a lot of pressure to perform a technically perfect concert while moving on potentially unstable platforms. All this is done before the eyes of millions who expect it all to appear effortless. Singing live over their own vocal track can give singers a sense of security in case of potential mistakes (which are sure to be viewed on Twitter hundreds of times after the fact).

There are some signs you can look out for when determining whether someone’s lip syncing. Even the best live vocals won’t sound too perfect, and a live recording will still have breathing, voice cracks, and the sound of clothes ruffling left in. For many streamed performances, it can be hard to tell if a singer is truly singing live as many shows will have sound engineers prepared to auto-tune and remove any unwanted sounds from even a live performance. Unless she tells us herself, we can’t know if Rihanna lip synced, but can you really blame her if she did?

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