Britney, Beyoncé and Pink’s Pepsi commercial could have been Super Bowl ad gold — only it never actually aired in the U.S.
Pepsi got the right ones (baby!) when they cast Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Pink in a Gladiator-inspired commercial. While the brand spent lots of money to make it, the ad ended up never airing in the United States.
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With the 2025 Super Bowl in our sights, plenty of new star-studded commercials have been dropping, from the When Harry Met Sally reunion to pickleball aces Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara, and more on the way.
While there are many opinions about the best celebrity-centric Super Bowl commercials, one that often comes up — Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Pink’s Gladiator-themed Pepsi ad — actually never aired during the NFL’s big game. In fact, it didn’t air in the United States at all.
Pepsi had long featured the world’s best-known singers in commercials, whether it was Michael Jackson, Ray Charles or Shakira, but bringing together these female powerhouses for the 2003 shoot was next-level. The brand dubbed it “a Roman clash of the music titans.”
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Going into making the ad, titled “Gladiators” or “We Will Rock You” (it’s been called both), Spears and Beyoncé already had contracts with the brand. Pink was a first-timer, having never previously appeared in a TV commercial.
Spears viewing footage with director Tarsem Singh, center, on Sept. 22, 2003. (John Gichigi/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
The commercial, directed by Tarsem Singh, also featured Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, who arranged a new version of their British band’s 1977 hit, and “Emperor” Enrique Iglesias, who ended up being lion food. The shoot took place three years after Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, hit theaters.
The pop superstars were flown to Rome to make the commercial, but it actually took place at a coliseum down the street from the actual Colosseum.
The commercial was shot down the street from the real Colosseum, and spectators were added with special effects. (Clive Brunskill/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
"What a weird deal that was,” Pink told People in 2023. “You're flying us to Rome to shoot in a fake coliseum down the street from the real Coliseum. Why are we here? We could have gone to Canada. I don't understand. That's Pepsi money. For a while, everything I saw that was really fancy, I was like, 'That's Pepsi money.’ It was bizarre.”
“When you’re dealing with international superstars, finding one day that works for everybody can be one of the trickiest parts of the whole project,” Frank Scherma, a producer on the project, told Rolling Stone the same year.
It was Pink's first commercial ever. She later referred to anything fancy and big budget as "Pepsi money." (John Gichigi/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
Singh recalled thinking, “We get these girls for a very small window. Nothing can go wrong.”
While there was a lot of prep that day, the actual shoot took place in just minutes.
Beyoncé being shaded by a personal umbrella holder — so very aughts! (John Gichigi/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
“I told them I’m going to wait for what I call ‘dog light’ — when the sun is just about 10 degrees or 20 degrees above,” Singh said. “That’s how I shoot all my family photos. I tell them, even a dog looks good in that light, so you guys can look really good. So, I waited for that light. And when the girls came, I just said 'We’re going to risk it, wait until the very end and no coverage. When we go, we’ll just be doing like two takes each, and we’ll be done.'”
Right before, Spears needed a bathroom break “and I had to say no,” Singh said. “We’ve only got about 11 minutes of sun. But she understood and hung in there.”
Spears needed a bathroom break in this photo, but she pressed on with the shoot. (John Gichigi/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
The women rocked it in bikini tops and skirts, singing their hearts out to the song after they threw down their weapons and came together in the ultimate female power move.
Scherma said the first five rows in the coliseum featured real people, including May and Taylor, but the rest of the 50,000 Romans in the stands were CGI.
Pink with Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor, who arranged a new version of "We Will Rock You" for the commercial. They also appeared in the stands. (John Gichigi/ Getty Images for Pepsi)
Along the way, Singh said he was told the commercial “‘won’t work for the American audience’ … I’m saying: ‘Really?’ And somehow this never played during the Super Bowl. Otherwise, it would have been one of those iconic ads in America that people would have remembered.”
Instead, it aired exclusively overseas, Ad Age reported at the time, but it gained a cult following, so people think they saw it when the Carolina Panthers played the New England Patriots in the 2004 Super Bowl.
Execs decided the commercial wouldn't work for an American audience, so it only aired overseas. Pink, Britney Spears, and Beyoncé Knowles pose with some gladiators for the commercial's premiere at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in London on Jan. 26, 2004. (John Gichigi/Getty Images)
Maybe as a consolidation prize, the commercial got a splashy premiere, and Pink, Beyoncé and Spears united once again — this time in London — in January 2004. “Pepsi money” was spent on men being hired to play gladiators at the event, which was held at the National Gallery.
May and Taylor joined Spears, Pink and Beyoncé on Jan. 26, 2004 for the premiere. (John Gichigi/Getty Images)
In November 2024, timed to the Gladiator 2 release, Megan Thee Stallion starred in a remake of the original commercial. “Empress Megan” watched over NFL “gladiators” Travis Kelce, Josh Allen, Derrick Henry and Justin Jefferson, as they tore up the coliseum and swigged their carbonated drinks. It featured Megan’s version of the Queen song with updated lyrics.
While the ad wasn’t as beloved as the original, Megan told People that landing “a Pepsi commercial is such a huge deal. I feel like it's the rite of passage that all the baddies have to go through, like Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Pink — and now Megan Thee Stallion."
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