British rapper M.I.A. angered Super Bowl fans last Sunday after holding up the middle finger during her halftime performance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj.
The “Bad Girl” rapper also caught the ire of the pop queen, who she collaborated with on the track “Give Me All Your Luvin.”
VIDEO: Madonna Nicki Minaj M.I.A at Super Bowl
Madonna address the headline making incident during an interview with Ryan Seacrest.
“I wasn’t happy about it. I understand it’s punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity, it seemed negative,” she said. “It’s such a teenager, kind of irrelevant thing to do. But on the other hand, there was such a feeling of love and unity there, what was the point? It was just out of place.”
M.I.A. has since apologized to the Material Girl. “She has. I know she feels bad,” she told Carson Daly. “I accept her apology, but you know, I think she still has her head in the sand right now.”
Madonna also praised her onstage collaborators for helping her pull off a show stopping performance at the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show.
“I wanted to choose fun people. Nicki and M.I.A. are cool because they have youthful energy and I think they’re badasses in their own right. And LMFAO, to me they’re just pure joy and they crack me up,” she told Seacrest. “I love Cee Lo. I’ve always loved his voice. I feel like he’s somebody really up-and-coming. It was like a dream come true for me. I got to work with a lot of people that I wanted to work with.”
