Charlie Puth Reveals He &x27;Applied&x27; and &x27;Auditioned&x27; for Super Bowl 2026 National Anthem Gig Daniela AvilaWed, January 21, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC 0 Cindy Ord/VF25/Getty Charlie Puth in Beverly Hills in March 2025 Charlie Puth told Rolling Stone that he auditioned for his upcoming national anthem performance at the Super Bowl "I made up my own audition because I've always wanted to do it," he told the outlet In December, Puth responded to backlash about the performance and said he had a "really special" arrangement planned Charlie Puth landed his upcoming Super Bowl gig the old fashi...
Charlie Puth Reveals He 'Applied' and 'Auditioned' for Super Bowl 2026 National Anthem Gig
Daniela AvilaWed, January 21, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC
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Cindy Ord/VF25/Getty
Charlie Puth in Beverly Hills in March 2025 -
Charlie Puth told Rolling Stone that he auditioned for his upcoming national anthem performance at the Super Bowl
"I made up my own audition because I've always wanted to do it," he told the outlet
In December, Puth responded to backlash about the performance and said he had a "really special" arrangement planned
Charlie Puth landed his upcoming Super Bowl gig the old fashioned way.
In an interview published with Rolling Stone on Tuesday, Jan. 20, the "Light Switch" singer was asked about singing the national anthem at Super Bowl LX in February. While expressing his excitement for the gig, Puth, 34, revealed he took matters into his own hands to land it.
"I actually have always wanted to do this, and I recorded a little demo, just me singing with the Rhodes and sent it to Roc Nation. I've been told Jay-Z loved it, and it got to [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell and they all said that I could do it," he told the outlet.
Puth later added, "I applied. I auditioned for it, but I made up my own audition because I've always wanted to do it — because I love it musically. It's the best song. Musically, it's so special."
Discussing what he has in store for the performance, Puth said he feels pressure to perform on par with Whitney Houston's national anthem performance in 1991.
"She's from Newark. And I would be the second New Jersey native, as The Star-Ledger wrote, to sing the national anthem. It's a great honor," the "We Don't Talk Anymore" singer said. "I'm going to be inspired by what Whitney did, but I can't ever touch what she did."
"That's the best one ever done — that and the Chris Stapleton one. That was raw. Made grown men cry. I just want to do my own thing with the hardest piece of music ever written," he continued. "And I just wanna show people that I can do it. I feel like people don't really think of me as, like, a stand-alone vocalist at times."
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Puth was announced as a Super Bowl performer in December and he posted a silly video on Instagram to mark the announcement.
"Did you know that one of the most beautiful pieces of music also happens to be the hardest to sing?" he said in a Nov. 30 video, where he assumed the role of a coach in a locker room full of football players.
Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty
Charlie Puth in New York City in December 2025
In true Puth fashion, he went on to explain the undertaking of performing the song on a whiteboard and made football analogies.
"Ah, yes, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is a piece of music that has extreme vocal range," he said. "Most hard-to-sing songs span just one octave range, like a low D to a high D, but 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' it goes from a low D to a high D, plus five more notes, all the way up to a very high A."
After the announcement, Puth faced backlash online — and responded directly.
"Man we've fallen from when Whitney Houston sang at the Super Bowl. Charlie Puth? He's not gonna give us vocals I'm afraid," Link Lauren, a political commentator with 170,000+ followers, wrote on X.
The "One Call Away" singer replied, "I'll never claim to be as good of a singer as Whitney Houston ever was. But I assure you we're putting a really special arrangement together—in D major. It'll be one of my best vocal performances."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: January 21, 2026 at 11:36PM on Source: ANDY MAG
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