An Arizona man said Rihanna paid $500,000 to rent out his luxury home for a week while she prepared for her Super Bowl performance

• An Arizona man told the Wall Street Journal that Rihanna rented out his home for $500,000 a week.
• The musician stayed at his home outside Phoenix while she prepared for the Super Bowl halftime show.

An Arizona man said Rihanna paid $500,000 to rent out his luxury home for a week while she prepared for her Super Bowl performance, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Spyro Malaspinas, a 48-year-old cybersecurity expert, told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn't planning on leasing out his home for the Super Bowl, even as people were paying big bucks for lodging.

During Super Bowl weekend, the average price of hotel rooms in the Glendale neighborhood of Phoenix, where the stadium is located, was $600 a night, the Wall Street Journal reported.

And that's just for a hotel room, not Malaspinas' 6,400-square-foot, 5-bedroom mansion with a pool.

Still, Malaspinas wasn't interested in renting, telling the Journal, "The last thing I am is a real estate baron."

That is, until a property management firm came to him with an offer he couldn't refuse — $500,000 to rent out his home for just one week, according to the Journal.

"My pride's not that big," Malaspinas told the Journal. "I don't mind moving out for $500,000 a week." Malaspinas said that single payment was enough to pay off two years of his mortgage.

It was only after he agreed to lease the home that he learned his tenant was Rihanna — the billionaire musician who performed the Super Bowl halftime show on February 11, 2023.

"My [13-year-old] daughter was absolutely thrilled," he told the Journal.

A representative for Rihanna did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, nor did Spyro Malaspinas.

Malaspinas told the Journal that he has not yet moved back into his home, but he's received some outrageously high offers to buy his mansion since.