At a time of widespread fear and distrust in the United States, Bad Bunny offered a loving and optimistic vision of the American experience during his halftime show at Sunday’s Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Leading an expansive and multigenerational crew of singers, dancers and musicians, the 31-year-old Puerto Rican superstar followed up his historic album of the year win at last weekend’s Grammy Awards with a busy and colorful performance that drew lines between the traditional folk forms of his native island and the throbbing reggaeton beats that have made him an icon to young people around the globe.
The first all-Spanish-language halftime show in Super Bowl history, Bad Bunny’s show transformed the gridiron into a series of settings including a field filled with laborers, a bodega, a wedding party and a casita like the one the singer built his popular 2025 San Juan arena residency around. The performance included surprise appearances by Lady Gaga, who sang a salsa-fied version of her hit “Die With a Smile,” and Ricky Martin, who joined Bad Bunny for “Lo Que Le Páso a Hawaii.” Karol G and Pedro Pascal were among those dancing on the field.
Bad Bunny referred to his Grammy win with a young boy watching his acceptance speech on a TV; he also invoked Puerto Rico’s history of power outages during his song “El Apógan,” which he and several dancers performed while twirling around prop power lines. The 13-minute show ended with Bad Bunny proclaiming “God bless America” as the stadium’s screen read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Bad Bunny’s performance was controversial before he even took the field.
President Trump called his booking “a terrible choice” and said that “all it does is sow hatred.” Right-wing commentators framed Bad Bunny’s selection as un-American (though Puerto Rico is of course a U.S. territory); Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, put together a so-called All-American Halftime Show featuring Kid Rock in an appeal to viewers scandalized by … the Spanish language? Dancing? The idea of fun?
For the NFL, the blowback was a calculated risk as the league makes a push to globalize its fanbase. Bad Bunny’s show was the latest in a long-term deal between the league and Jay-Z’s sprawling entertainment company, Roc Nation, which took over producing halftime in 2020 amid bruising criticism of the NFL’s handling of race in the wake of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police violence targeting Black people.
Before kickoff Sunday, Charlie Puth performed a slick, yacht-rock-style rendition of the national anthem for which he accompanied himself on Rhodes electric piano, and Brandi Carlile sang “America the Beautiful” with help from her frequent collaborators SistaStrings on violin and cello. The venerable Bay Area punk band Green Day also put in a characteristically punchy mini-set meant to mark the Super Bowl’s 60th anniversary.
The post Bad Bunny brings Puerto Rico to the Super Bowl halftime show appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
