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For months, there has been a sustained, dramatic, multi-platform MAGA meltdown over a Puerto Rican star performing during the Super Bowl halftime show.
Bad Bunny, the 31-year-old multi-Grammy winner who was named the most-streamed artist in the world on Spotify in 2025, answered vile comments from President Donald Trump’s administration and followers with a Sunday performance that barely acknowledged their existence.
Rather, he invited the audience to celebrate what has been villainized. Much of the roughly 15-minute show was pulled from Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour, including the casita—or little house—that anchored the football field-turned-stage.
Bad Bunny’s Grammy Award-winning album of the same name is a crowd pleaser. Its entire Spanish-language tracklist blends classic genres of Salsa and Bachata with newer sounds from Reggaeton, a Caribbean-born style that mixes many of the region’s existing styles. But you don’t really need to know that to enjoy it.
Bad Bunny, born Benito Martinez Ocasio, had a limited amount of time to demonstrate that to an audience that had been primed to dislike him.
NBC’s broadcast began with a camera panning on verdant grass stalks. From there, multi-generational scenes familiar to anyone who grew up in New York City, or in a Caribbean or Latino household, emerged. Bad Bunny swaggered through uncles playing dominoes, barber shop appointments, and a casita party—all while performing songs that were hits well before he became a household name for Turning Point USA.
The first songs, “Titi Me Pregunto” and “Yo Perreo Sola,” would almost certainly prompt a new wave of vicious X posts from the MAGA sphere if they bothered to translate the lyrics. But the images on screen were telegraphing a joy that didn’t bother to attempt universality while maintaining accessibility.
Maybe you’ve never been to a Puerto Rican party and can’t speak a word of Spanish. In a fleeting moment on national television, this production welcomed you to join in and dance.
Bad Bunny was dressed in an all-white outfit with exaggerated shoulder pads, and his curly hair gelled down slickly. Formal attire for an important occasion.
Around him were people of all ages and genders dancing, laughing, and partying. Like really partying, in a way that maybe would leave one with headaches and upset stomachs the next day. It was the first primetime event in a long time that felt like a catharsis rather than something that required your body to clench in preparation for something horrible.
And clearly, it wasn’t because the Puerto Rican artist defanged himself or his music for the millions of people watching the Super Bowl or the critics who said he wasn’t a family-friendly choice. The ensemble of women dancing in front of Bad Bunny wore ultra-short skirts and shook every part of their bodies that could move.
Men passionately rolled their bodies into each other, as the crush of the crowd morphed into a sensuous sway of bodies. But amid the gyrating and Bad Bunny’s signature and very PG-13 hip thrust, people were having an infectious level of fun.
When Bad Bunny has had the opportunity to speak publicly in the last month—including accepting those Grammy Awards— he used the chance to combat the vile rhetoric towards immigrants and the violent federal operations to terrorize and remove them to send a message: Meet the hate with love.
He has also said more firmly political words, calling for “ICE out” and decrying that immigrants were treated like “animals.” But the message he brought to “compete” with the Kid Rock-led alternative halftime show was all about the love.
At times, that was quite literal. An actual wedding ceremony occurred during the short performance, complete with a bride, groom, and officiant. But it was also in the inclusive choices Bad Bunny made.
Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin were brought out for performances. The stage was lined with young music stars like Karol G, Cardi B, and Young Miko—but also with Latino favorites like Jessica Alba and Pedro Pascal.
It was the people who are popular with wide swaths of the country who are popular with even wider swaths of the world.
Bad Bunny didn’t change the art he’s been producing that made him so popular. He didn’t change the stage sets that sold out an entire residency in Puerto Rico.
He didn’t change the lyrics to a song that boasts about his many, many girlfriends. He didn’t change the song that expresses his fear that Puerto Rico will meet the same colonial fate as Hawaii—paradise for locals sold out as a playground for tourists.
All of it was right there, in between four quarters of the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks running full speed at each other and Dunkin’ adds featuring every sitcom star from the ’90s.
He concluded the party with a march down the field, backed by flags representing nations across North and South America. The U.S. flag was accompanied by Venezuela, Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico, and many more. Bad Bunny victoriously shouted “God Bless America,” not-so-subtly driving home his point made during that Grammy acceptance speech: “We are all Americans.”
At the end of the show, he repeated his message of love: “Lo único más poderoso que el odio es el amor.”
The only thing more powerful than hate is love.
He made his case well.
