Jennifer Lopez and Shakira have promised to pay tribute to Kobe Bryant during the Super Bowl half-time show.
The two superstars will perform at the showpiece event on Sunday, where the San Francisco 49ers will face the Kansas City Chiefs to be crowned NFL champions.
The game will take place a week after the death of retired basketball player Bryant, who died alongside his teenage daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles.
During the Super Bowl press conference in Miami, Florida, on Thursday, Lopez and Shakira discussed Bryant and their plans for Sunday’s show.
Lopez said there will be a “heartfelt” moment during the performance, but did not go into detail.
Lopez said her fiance, the retired baseball player Alex Rodriguez, knew Bryant and his wife Vanessa and told her about the accident.
“Alex came to me with tears in his eyes, and he’s like, ‘You’re not going to believe what happened,'” she said.
“He was devastated. He knew Kobe really well. I knew Kobe and Vanessa more in passing. He had come to my last show in Vegas – the both of them – as a date night and we had a beautiful night that night.”
Lopez, who alongside Shakira will be the first Latina women on the Super Bowl stage since Gloria Estafan, added: “I think of how awful that must be for her (Vanessa) right now.
“I’ve just been praying that God guides her through every moment because she has three more babies to take care of and just wishing that the nightmare was over but it’s not going to be. That’s life and we have to carry on. But at the same time, it affects us and it will affect us forever.”
Colombian Shakira, who has released music in Spanish and English, said Sunday’s show will celebrate Bryant and diversity.
She added: “I think we will all be remembering Kobe on Sunday. We’ll be celebrating life, and celebrating diversity in this country.”
Shakira said the performance is a “palpable example of how anything is possible” and she and Lopez are “redefining paradigms about age, about race, about background.”
“It doesn’t really matter where you’re from, how old you are or where you come from, what matters is the message and what you have to say. We have a lot to say,” she added.
