Later today, Lady Gaga will be following in the footsteps of the biggest pop stars on the planet as she performs at the halftime show at Super Bowl LI.
But despite the rumours that she will use one of the most watched sporting events on the planet as an opportunity to criticise President Trump, it probably won’t even come close to the most controversial half-time Super Bowl incident.
The half-time show at Super Bowl XVIII saw a collaboration of 2004’s biggest pop stars, including Britney Spears, Kid Rock, Nelly, P. Diddy, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.
But, as reported by Forbes, it was the latter two who made all the headlines. When Timberlake neared the end of his single ‘Rock Your Body’ (yeah, it’s really that old) he accidentally tore off a piece of Janet’s corset and the world as we know it changed forever.
Hey, it might sound a bit dramatic but what is now known as ‘Nipplegate’ inspired the start of the biggest video-sharing platform on the planet, YouTube.
It’s believed over 140 million people saw Jackson’s exposed breast, but of course there were also many who didn’t manage to catch the game- one of those people was YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, who at the time was working for PayPal.
Back in 2004, there was no way to go back and catch up on the show, unless you taped it. So after missing the show, Karim tried searching for it on the internet, but to no avail.
So he decided, along with friends Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, to begin working on code for a site where people could upload their own content and the rest they say is history.
YouTube was launched not that long after and was an instant success, thanks to videos like this:
A mere 12 months later and Google purchased it for over $1.5 billion (£1.2 billion), with the founders given plenty of stock and making Karim, Chen and Hurley incredibly wealthy.
13 years later and it’s now worth an estimated $104 billion (£83 billion), while sadly Jackson’s career has never recovered, following the damage it suffered on that fateful February day in 2004.
So, there you have it, without Janet Jackson accidentally revealing her boob we may never have had ‘Charlie bit my finger’, PewDiePie and ‘Chocolate Rain’.
It’s a strange ol’ world isn’t it?
