Many were likely expecting fireworks from Green Day during their Super Bowl pre-game performance, but they didn't come days after lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong encouraged ICE employees to “quit your s****y-ass job.”
Green Day kicked off Super Bowl 60 by playing a medley of their greatest hits. Two of them, “Holiday” and “American Idiot,” are notoriously political.
Our full Super Bowl LX Opening Ceremony performance is live ! 🤘🏻 Relive every insane moment from start to finish https://t.co/L2KtJ0rkMd pic.twitter.com/ExSUNPf17N
— Green Day (@GreenDay) February 9, 2026
While Armstrong has previously tweaked the lyrics to “American Idiot” to say “I'm not of a MAGA agenda” in the second verse, the band didn't even get that far into the song. The rendition of the song ended after the first chorus.
If Armstrong had sung this part of the song, it would've surely been controversial. President Donald Trump skipped the game because of Green Day and Bad Bunny's involvement, saying he was “anti-them.”
Did NBC censor Green Day during their Super Bowl pre-game performance?

It doesn't appear Green Day sang the tweaked part of the second verse of “American Idiot.” However, it does appear they were censored during that song.
The end of the first verse was censored. The lyric goes, “The subliminal mindf**k America.” This part was cut by NBC during the live broadcast. This wasn't surprising. NBC is a major network, and “f**k” cannot be said on television.
Ultimately, Green Day didn't get as political as some expected with their Super Bowl performance, at least on the surface. Most of the songs they performed are inherently political, and the messages are in the original lyrics.
Perhaps the time restrictions played a role in their performance. They started by performing “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” as past Super Bowl MVPs were brought onto the field before kicking into their three-song medley of “Holiday,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and “American Idiot.” The performance only lasted about five minutes, so they didn't have a chance to perform the full songs.




















