The director of the Super Bowl halftime show had previously sounded off against Katy Perry, calling her performance at the 2015 event "awful." The halftime show drew 118.5 million viewers, marking a significant bump over the game itself, which only drew 114.4 million.
Billboard show director Hamish Hamilton said that he was nervous about Perry's artistic choice before the show aired live.
"There was one part of the Katy Perry show last year, which I was [like] 'This is never gonna work, this is terrible. It's awful. No! Rubbish! What are you guys thinking about? That just doesn't work on television!'"
After seeing the performance stage during rehearsals, however, he realized Perry was on the right track.
"Actually it worked really really well," he admitted. Even before we got to Super Bowl Sunday, I realised that what I'd been saying was completely stupid and completely wrong. All the creative [input] is fairly heavily stress-tested before you get there. It just goes to show you can have opinions, but your opinion is not always right."
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