Super Bowl 2018: P!nk battles through cold as she performs national anthem
P!nk arrives to the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on March 2, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. AFP PHOTO/ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ (Photo credit should read ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Performing at the Super Bowl is as big as it gets.
Millions of Americans tune in for the biggest sporting event of the year, and in 2018 it was P!nk’s turn to sing the US national anthem.
The globally famous singer and proud LGBT ally belted out the Star Spangled Banner in front of a huge crowd in Minneapolis.
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P!nk admitted that the performance was a childhood dream come true.
“I’ve been waiting to sing this song since 1991 when I saw my idol, Whitney Houston, own this song,” she writes on Instagram.
“And now, my chance has finally come.”
But the show wasn’t without its difficulties, as she attempted to battle through a debilitating cold.
Just moments before she began to sing cameras caught her pulling a sweet from her mouth.
P!nk (Getty)
She later confirmed it had been a lozenge to help her voice.
“I will tell you, this is one of the biggest honors of my life, singing this song in front of my family, my military family, my dad and brother and step mama and family and the world,” P!nk said on on Instagram.
“And the EAGLES!?!?! I promise I will do my best, as I always do.”
The singerspoke recently about raising her children to choose their own gender.
The Beautiful Trauma star, whose new album went straight to number one in the US, has a history of speaking out about against gender stereotypes.
Last year at the MTV VMAs, the star made an impassioned defence of people who, like her six-year-old daughter Willow, dress in gender non-conforming ways.
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The singer, whose real name is Alecia Beth Moore, has spoken frequently about how fans mistakenly believe she is a lesbian, despite having children with husband Carey Hart.
In October, P!nk addressed her sexuality, calling on people to “leave it alone.
“I just wanna live my life. I don’t need you to put me in a box or to figure me out or to figure out what I am. Cos I don’t know yet. And I never say never.”
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It appears that – understandably – she doesn’t want her children to have to deal with similar misconceptions.
The 38-year-old musician also spoke about how institutions such as schools were taking steps to make all students feel comfortable about gender, instead of imposing one on them.
“I was in a school and the bathroom outside the kindergarten said: ‘Gender Neutral – anybody’, and it was a drawing of many different shapes,” she recalled.
“I took a picture of it and I wrote: ‘Progress’.”
