Wu-Tang Clan will headline the Lions Thanksgiving halftime show when Detroit hosts the Chicago Bears on Nov. 26 at Ford Field, the team announced Nov. 1. CBS will televise the 87th annual Thanksgiving Day Classic at 1 p.m. ET.
Eminem and his longtime manager, Shady Records President Paul Rosenberg, picked the act. It’s their second show as executive producers under a multiyear partnership with the Lions.
What the Lions announced
Rosenberg didn’t pretend the choice was an obvious one.
“We often like to do things that are both exciting and unexpected,” he said in the team’s announcement. “A Wu-Tang Clan Thanksgiving performance in Detroit certainly fits that description! Both Eminem and myself have been Wu fans since the early ’90s along with a whole generation of Detroit football fans, and we are honored to bring them to this year’s stage.”
Lions President and CEO Rich Haddad called the Thanksgiving game “one of the greatest traditions in sports” and the hip-hop group “one of the greatest performers in music.”
Antonio Cipriano, an actor and recording artist from Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, will sing the national anthem.
Why the timing matters for Wu-Tang Clan
The Ford Field show lands at the end of the Staten Island group’s farewell tour, “Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber.”
It also falls 12 days after Wu-Tang Clan’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, set for Nov. 14 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. That ceremony will air in December on ABC and Disney+, so the halftime show will reach a national audience first.
What it means for fans of the Lions Thanksgiving halftime show
Detroit’s holiday game was already drawing big names such as Shaboozey, Jack Harlow and Big Sean before Eminem and Rosenberg came aboard.
Their first show leaned hard into hometown pride. Detroit native Jack White headlined last year and shared the stage with Eminem in a surprise appearance. Booking a New York group is a different move, which may be what Rosenberg meant by “unexpected.”
The Lions haven’t announced a setlist or any special guests, and the announcement doesn’t say which members will perform.
What’s next
Total Apex Entertainment will update this story if the Lions share more details about the performance.
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