The latest case of turning lemons into lemonade, or supposed snubs into lucrative deals, comes from music star Lil Wayne. New Orleans native Wayne was famously upset in September when the NFL and Apple Music chose Kendrick Lamar for the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. And he’s continued to comment on that a bit, noting on his Instagram Stories this week he wouldn’t attend the game and there would be a “seat to fill,” but that “something special” would drop Thursday:

It turns out that “something special” was an ad for skincare brand Cetaphil, part of their “We’re All A Little Sensitive” campaign. (“Seat-to-fill” indeed.) That campaign has pulled in plenty of other high-profile athletes, too, including the Bills’ Dion Dawkins and Damar Hamlin. And a version of that ad will air locally on Fox 8 WVUE during their Super Bowl broadcast Sunday.

The ad starts with Wayne showing up at a bunch of awkward sports and other moments with Cetaphil skincare lotion. And he then ends it by rejecting an offer of Super Bowl tickets with “Nah, this is time-sensitive” and closing a recording studio door, with “Carter VI” and “Do Not Disturb Until 06-06-25” written on the door. That suggests his next highly-anticipated album Tha Carter VI will come out then.

It’s somewhat understandable why the NFL and Apple Music/Jay-Z/Roc Nation chose Kendrick for this halftime show given Kendrick’s current global popularity. (But there are questions about just what version of Not Like Us he can perform, and if that will upset the FCC. And Drake is already preemptively mad at, and suing, their shared label, Universal Music Group.) However, it’s also understandable why Wayne was upset here given his long-noted Louisiana roots and current activity there, and his long-stated sports fandom (which included even creating the theme song for and regularly appearing on FS1’s Undisputed, and now regularly appearing on NFL Network’s NFL GameDay Morning).

And this is interesting for what it may say about the current state of the Wayne-NFL relationship. The NFL supposedly tried to smooth this over a bit, as per Wayne’s former broadcasting partner Skip Bayless. And maybe Wayne isn’t all that mad if he’s willing to make ads referencing him being sensitive. But it’s still quite notable to see him turning down those tickets, and to see a version of this ad running locally during the Super Bowl (and in the city perhaps most receptive to Wayne’s side of that divide). And we’ll see if that has any implications for Wayne being involved in NFL things in the future, including on NFL Network.