Bad Bunny never stopped believing in himself. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performance brought a “huge party” to the stage, honoring Latin excellence and power, while reminding audiences, “The Only Thing More Powerful than Hate is Love.”
Bad Bunny’s performance, with guest performances from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, featured familiar symbols from his songs, music videos and live performances, while creating new, groundbreaking halftime motifs. With images of the Puerto Rican flag, traditional Caribbean hats, plastic chairs, the sapo concho and “La Casita,” Bad Bunny brought audiences back to iconic symbols across his musical career, drawing predominantly from Puerto Rican culture but with a twist.
The iconic plastic chairs on the cover of “DtMF” featured Ricky Martin, a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and actor who praised Bad Bunny in his Grammy wins. Similarly, “La Casita,” a set piece featured in his recent tours, which represents the colorful architecture of Puerto Rico, had famous faces from Pedro Pascal to Cardi B to Alix Earle.
Lady Gaga performed “Die With a Smile” at a wedding-style dance party, followed by a duet-dance between Gaga and Bad Bunny while “Baile Inolvidable” played. Alongside famous actors, singers and influencers, Bad Bunny presented small scenes with various dancers and actors in the cast. A callback to his Grammy speech just a week prior, Bad Bunny approached a young boy on the set while the boy watched the awards on a small television. He handed him a replica of the award and told him, “Always believe in yourself.”
Likewise, Bad Bunny directly addressed the disasters and inequalities Puerto Ricans have faced with his performance of “El Apagón,” which he published alongside a documentary about low-income residents of San Juan who have been pushed out of their homes by millionaire mainland traders. “El Apagón” also mentions the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, amplified by his halftime set with powerlines sparking and turning off.
Just as Bad Bunny speaks to the inequities Puerto Rico has faced, he also celebrates places in Puerto Rico and Latin America as a whole. At the end of his performance, Bad Bunny tells the audience, “God bless America” in English before listing countries in South, Central and North America in Spanish, closing with his “motherland Puetro Rico” both in English and Spanish. Behind him, performers run holding flags of all the named countries, calling back to the global prominence of Bad Bunny’s musical career. Ending the performance, he throws a football which is labeled with “Together, We Are America,” as he said in Spanish, “We’re still here.” He then danced off the field with the performers side by side.
Bad Bunny’s performance is the first all-Spanish halftime show, and previous pop halftime shows have marked historical shifts in the history of the Super Bowl halftime. Gloria Estefan performed the first non-entirely English set, combining English and Spanish. In an interview with E! News, Estefan shared the advice she gave Bad Bunny and said, “In those minutes, he’s gonna have the ability to impact the world.”
Likewise, previous Super Bowl halftime performances have created political statements that critique the United States government and general culture. In Jennifer Lopez’s 2020 halftime show — which Bad Bunny appeared in — she showed children in cages. Many interpreted it as a critique of U.S. immigration policies that separated migrant children from their families. Additionally, Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 performance included Samuel L. Jackson as American symbol Uncle Sam, who tells Lamar his set is “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” commenting on America’s racism.
Bad Bunny’s halftime performance marks another advancement in his musical career following his Grammy wins (Album of the Year, Best Global Music Performance and Best Música Urbana Album), decorating his 2025 album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.” The album intersected multiple styles of classical Puerto Rican music, like salsa, boma, plena and música jíbara, with modern sounds, like house and reggaeton. Many elements of the album paid tribute to Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican heritage with the additional drop of a short film highlighting gentrification in Puerto Rico.
Other Latino musicians and music lovers resonated deeply with the Grammy wins, especially since his album became the first Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year. Ricky Martin, who performed in the halftime show, wrote in a letter in the newspaper El Nuevo Dia, that the Grammy win touched him deeply “not only as an artist, but as a Puerto Rican who has walked stages around the world carrying his language, his accent, and his story” (translations produced by Entertainment Weekly).
Alongside his wins, Bad Bunny shared his speech for Album of the Year entirely in Spanish, highlighting the strength of Puerto Ricans and Latinos around the world while thanking each person who helped him along the way. In his other speech for the Best Música Urbana Album, Bad Bunny said “ICE OUT,” commenting on detainments by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and encouraging viewers to fight with love.
“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans. Also, I want to say to the people, I know it’s tough to not hate on these days. And I was thinking, sometimes we get ‘contaminados’ [contaminated] but the hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love,” Bad Bunny said in his Grammy acceptance speech.
Continuing his speeches in Spanish, Bad Bunny hinted at his Super Bowl performance in his monologue on “Saturday Night Live” in October, including a section entirely in Spanish where he thanked Latinos and Latinas for creating opportunities across the United States that no one will ever be able to erase. After his Spanish monologue, he turned to the audience and said, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
His monologue and announcement as halftime performer sparked an argument amongst Conservative Americans. In previous statements, Bad Bunny has denounced Trump and ICE’s immigration efforts. In his 2025-26 concert tour, he did not include United States tour dates for fear of ICE raiding his venues, so his performance in Santa Clara for the Super Bowl marked a return to the U.S.
Similarly, President Donald Trump and many in his base have expressed continued disapproval over the halftime performance choice. Turning Point USA hosted an alternative program to counter the decision called “The Turning Point USA All-American Halftime Show,” featuring conservative artists with Kid Rock as the headliner.
In response to the performance, which honored love over hatred, President Trump posted the following on TruthSocial: “The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World.”
Despite split viewers, Bad Bunny’s halftime performance trailer received 1.6 million views, and the uploaded video of the performance already has nearly 1 million views only five hours later. According to ratings from Nielsen Media Research, likely more than 125 million viewers watched the Super Bowl, garnering an immense platform for Bad Bunny and continually propelling his musical career.