Reba McEntire Delivers Star-Spangled Performance at Super Bowl 2024

Reba McEntire has made her Super Bowl debut.

And this single mom who works two jobs delivered the performance of a lifetime when she sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at Las Vegas' Allegiant Stadium ahead of the Feb. 11 matchup of the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

For the occasion, the Reba alum donned a silver blazer and silver embroidered black bell bottoms. And in an especially sweet tribute, she wore her father's 1961 Championship Belt Buckle, which her mother was given right before Reba's father passed away. 

Reba was also joined on the field by Coda star Daniel Durant, who signed the anthem as Reba sang. 

Though it was her first time performing at the Super Bowl, she joins a long list of country singers who stood in her very shoes on football's biggest stage. In fact, she's the fourth in a row to be given the honor: was Chris Stapleton performed last year while Mickey Guyton sang the anthem in 2022 and Eric Church in 2021.

It was an especially poignant moment for the 68-year-old, who sang her first national anthem at a rodeo 50 years ago. 

"I'm very grateful, very thankful but wow. Who'd have thunk it," she said during a recent appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show. "Little old girl going up to the National Farmer's Rodeo in Oklahoma City from college in Durant, Oklahoma getting to sing the anthem and 11 months later I had a recording contract with Poylgram Mercury Records."

She added, "Every step, little baby steps throughout the 50 years has been teaching, learning because I knew nothing about the music business. Never in my wildest imagination and I got a pretty good imagination but nothing would ever had presented that to me—that 50 years later you'll be singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl."

And she isn't the only one making her Super Bowl debut. When Usher takes to the stage for the Halftime Show, he will be checking off his own career milestone, and he promises it will be a show to remember.

"I hope when they look at that halftime performance," he told Vogue, "I'm hoping they walk away with something that's healing them. Something that makes them feel hopeful, and not just look at the past, but have hope for the future, and have hope for a different type of future than we're looking at right now in the present."

Keep reading to see some of the stars who are in the stands for Super Bowl LVIII.