Christina Aguilera botches Super Bowl national anthem

Christina Aguilera has made an astonishing gaffe by botching a line as she belted out the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner at the start of today's Super Bowl.

The 30-year-old singer performed a powerful rendition of the American national anthem to open the NFL championship - but appeared to have been singing incorrect lyrics from Wikipedia rather than a proper version, the Daily Mail reports.

When she was supposed to sing the line ‘‘O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?’’ she instead repeated an earlier line, with a slight variation.

She sang ‘‘What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming’’, which is the same line from earlier in the song but with the word ’watched’ instead of the word ’hailed’.

The mistake immediately set social networks abuzz with people commenting on the error.

Viewers at home were quick to take to Twitter, the Daily Mail reports,

"Christina Aguilera just killed the National Anthem bet by singing the wrong words," tweeted @darrenrovell.

And justinjboone posted the message: "That was officially the saddest moment of Christina Aguilera's career."

Aguilera’s representative did not immediately return a call and email seeking comment.

AP, staff reporter