Taraji P. Henson’s Amazing Coldplay Joke Was, Tragically, an Accident

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Today in highly disappointing celebrity news, Taraji P. Henson explained that her very great, albeit kind of mean joke about Maroon 5 performing at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show was not a joke at all. Instead, like many misinterpretations, it was the result of alcohol.

In a since-deleted Instagram post last night, she wrote, "YAAAAAAASSSSSS!!! #maroon5 is life to me!!! #superbowl50" on a photo of Coldplay performing at the Super Bowl halftime show.

For many Taraji fans, however, this seemed like less of an innocent mistake and more of a multi-layered joke about interchangeable, vanilla, male-fronted mainstream rock bands. Coldplay, Maroon 5 — basically the same thing, right? "Right!" the world replied.

But in a disappointing twist, she confirmed to ET that no, she wasn't making a truly solid criticism of the music industry. "I don't know if you know how it goes down in the suites," she explained. "They put a lot of drinks in there — Kool-Aid, lemonade, iced tea." She then recalled how many of her friends immediately texted her telling her to change the post — friends, evidently, who didn't get the underlying insightfulness. We still believe, Taraji.