February 9, 2025
No matter who wins tonight's Super Bowl, H.E.R. will be heard during the game's fourth quarter interpreting Bruce Springsteen's classic song "Born to Run" in a way that reinforces and expands upon what he used to say onstage before singing it in the mid-1980s: "Nobody wins unless everybody wins." The acclaimed California-born Filipino-African-American songwriter, musician, and singer has partnered with the beauty/personal-care brand Dove for an ad campaign designed to raise awareness of the impact that negative body talk can have on girls in sports, and Dove's support of the Body Confident Sport program, described in Dove's press release as "a first-of-its-kind and scientifically-proven set of coaching tools to build body confidence in 11-17-year-old girls and encourage them to stay in sports."
Below you can watch two separate 30-second spots from the campaign: the one that will air tonight during the Super Bowl and another one that features even more of H.E.R.'s version of "Born to Run," which will be released officially in its full length tomorrow.
As an excellent Billboard feature on the ad campaign, which also features an exclusive interview with H.E.R. about the project, notes, "It’s a directive that feels especially poignant considering the popularity boom women’s sports have seen in recent years (thanks in no small part to powerhouses like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese), as well as the sociopolitical influx in online communities picking apart players’ appearances (the transphobic hate cisgender Algerian boxer Imane Khelif experienced during the 2024 Olympics comes to mind). And it’s definitely something that weighs on H.E.R.’s mind as a former athlete and role model to her 18-year-old and 3-year-old sisters, which is why she says she jumped at the chance to translate 'Born to Run' into a heartfelt tribute for young girls all over the world."
For her part, H.E.R. tells Billboard, "The song itself is so iconic, I didn’t want to do a complete left turn in my recreation of it. It’s so uplifting and joyful, and 'born to run,' it’s the perfect lyric. It’s the perfect message, and kind of the perfect pace for a message like this. It was all about the image of this young girl — keeping that in mind was the most important thing. We started with drums to kind of keep the energy but still make it my own, and I played some guitars on it to keep that iconic lead. It was all about adding even more soul to it. That iconic line that’s usually just the guitar line, I turned into vocals. I like doing things like that — taking pieces from the instrumentation and turning them into vocals — and my vocals definitely make [the song] a little more feminine... I love Bruce. I grew up listening to a lot of Bruce with my dad. He’s iconic. I actually got to meet him two years ago and he was so sweet. I was like, 'I’m such a big fan, my name’s Gabi.' [H.E.R.'s real name is Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson. Her stage name is an acronym for Having Everything Revealed.] He was like, 'Oh my god, H.E.R., I’m such a big fan of you, I’ve mentioned you in interviews, you really rock out on stage.' And I’m like, 'Man, I get it from you!'”
Click here to read Hannah Dailey's complete Billboard article "How H.E.R. Reimagined an Iconic Bruce Springsteen Hit to Remind Girls in Sports They’re ‘Born to Run’".