Kid Rock both criticized Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show—and inadvertently admitted he watched it.
The MAGA music star, who headlined Turning Point USA’s rival performance, the “All American Halftime Show,” told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he didn’t care for the all-Spanish show.
“Like most people, I didn’t understand any of it,” Kid Rock, 55, said of Bad Bunny’s performance. “I saw there’s a lot of dancers and a lot of big to-do stuff. And, you know, he said he wanted to have a dance party; it looked like he had one.”
Bad Bunny, 31, opted for a mid-game show that focused on togetherness rather than division. At the end of his performance, the Puerto Rican rapper held up a football inscribed with the words, “Together We Are America,” while a banner reading, “The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate Is Love,” loomed behind him.
The show featured numerous cameos from Lady Gaga to Ricky Martin, examples of Puerto Rican culture, and a setlist of the Puerto Rican artists’ Grammy-winning discography.
“Not my cup of tea,” Kid Rock continued. “But I don’t fault that kid for doing the Super Bowl, getting in front of a global audience. I fault the NFL for putting him in that position and Turning Point for having to come out and have an alternative for people to watch. You know, it’s just... poor kid.”
Just hours before it was set to air, Turning Point’s halftime show was restricted from streaming on X. On YouTube, it has so far garnered 20 million views, which includes both live viewers and those who watched the livestream after it aired. The performance was criticized for being prerecorded and featuring apparent lip-synching.
Bad Bunny’s performance has 54 million views on the NFL’s official channel. Official viewership numbers for the live NFL broadcast have not yet been released by the league, but early estimates have it at 135 million live viewers—the most for any halftime show in history.
Later on The Ingrahm Angle, Kid Rock suggested that Bad Bunny’s performance could be traced back to a “DEI hire.”
“Nothing against Jay Z, I respect him for his hustle and, you know, his music, but it seems like there’s a little bit of a DEI hire there going on,” Kid Rock told Ingraham.
In 2019, Jay Z’s production company Roc Nation inked a deal with the NFL to produce its halftime shows. It has since produced two of the most-viewed performances in the event’s history, with last year’s Kendrick Lamar show attracting 133.5 million viewers.
Kid Rock is not the only conservative critic of the official halftime show. President Donald Trump, who was caught watching Bad Bunny’s performance, called the show “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” on Truth Social.
Ingraham had her own choice words for Bad Bunny after his performance.
“We somehow went from Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and Prince—supremely talented superstars—to a guy who kind of toods his way through songs, mumbling about meaningless nonsense," Ingraham said. “He’s an anti-American radical who canceled his U.S. shows because he’s supposedly afraid of ICE. What a phony. Unless that is, he’s worried that his concerts attract violent, illegal alien gang bangers or rapists.”
“But again, don’t blame him,” she continued. “Blame the NFL and its commissioner, Roger Goodell, who were guilted into giving Jay-Z and his Roc Nation production company the right to produce the halftime show for a multi-year contract.”
