Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime present brings the social gathering and Latin tradition to U.S.’s most-watched sporting occasion | USAEMALL.com

Bad Bunny brought the party to the Super Bowl halftime show as he promised, performing hits from “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” a week after winning Album of the Year for it at the 2026 Grammys.

The 31-year-old Puerto Rican superstar took the stage dressed in all white, donning a jersey with his last name, Ocasio, and the number 64. He made history as the first halftime show performer to sing primarily in Spanish at the most-watched sporting event in the United States.

Bad Bunny pays tribute to Puerto Rico

At halftime in the matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, Bad Bunny opened his performance at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, with his 2022 hit “Tití Me Preguntó.”

Paying tribute to his homeland, the field was filled with palm trees, sugarcane and other vegetation native to Puerto Rico. Walking through the lush greens, Bad Bunny passed sugarcane farmers sporting a pava (a traditional Puerto Rican straw hat), a coconut vendor, a piragua cart and a couple of boxers as he went on to perform another hit, “Yo Perreo Sola.”

The Free Press:  Arthur Brooks: Can We All Relax About Bad Bunny’s Spanish Halftime Show?

Bad Bunny also performed other songs from his latest album, including “EoO,” “NUEVAYoL,” which pays tribute to the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York City, and “DTMF.”

Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin make surprise appearances

Sunday’s halftime was packed with celebrity guest appearances, including Lady Gaga, who performed her duet “Die With a Smile” with a Latin sound.

Ricky Martin also made a surprise appearance. The Puerto Rican singer performed “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” a Bad Bunny song whose lyrics call out gentrification in the island — an ongoing trend fueled by tax incentives that have led to wealthy mainland Americans buying up land and homes, drawing a comparison to gentrification in Hawaii.

Other celebrity cameos included Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Cardi B and Karol G.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is one of the most-streamed artists on the planet. During the performance, he gave a shout-out to the countries across the Americas.

Towards the end of the show, the singer climbed an electrical pole, a reference to not only the power of Puerto Rico and its people but to power supply issues the island has struggled with. Many of his song lyrics criticize the ineffective response by the government in Puerto Rico to crises like the hurricanes that have pummeled the island and caused island-wide blackouts in recent years.

As he exited at the end of the show, trailed by U.S. and Puerto Rican flags and the flags of nations across the Americas, the message on a giant screen across the field read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

President Trump reacts to Super Bowl halftime show

Following the star-studded performance, President Trump took to social media to criticize the halftime show.

“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!,” he wrote on Truth Social. “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.”

Mr. Trump attended last year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans but he didn’t make an appearance this year. In an interview with The New York Post last month, he said the game was “just too far away.” The president also criticized the entertainment chosen by the NFL, which also included Green Day, a vocal critic of Mr. Trump and his administration.

“I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Mr. Trump told The Post.

Bad Bunny has also spoken out against the Trump administration. Last week at the Grammy Awards, the artist used one of his acceptance speeches to denounce U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying “ICE out.”

“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans,” he said as he accepted the Grammy for his album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” in the música urbana album category.

Aiming to bring “a lot of my culture”

At a press event last week hosted by halftime show sponsor Apple Music, Bad Bunny said: “I wasn’t looking for album of the year. I wasn’t looking to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show … I was just trying to connect with my roots, connect with my people, connect with myself.”

He also promised his Super Bowl show would be “a huge party,” adding, “I want to bring to the stage, of course, a lot of my culture. … I don’t want to give any spoilers. It’s going to be fun.”

With a total of six Grammys and 17 Latin Grammys, he has become a global ambassador for Latin music. He has also been featured in Hollywood films such as “Bullet Train,” “Caught Stealing” and “Happy Gilmore 2.”

Did Bad Bunny get paid for his Super Bowl halftime performance?

Super Bowl halftime show performers typically get paid less than the cost of the game’s ticket.

Bad Bunny will earn union scale, a minimum fee guaranteed under labor contracts, like previous halftime artists at the Super Bowl.

Under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union’s most recent contract, that would come to about $1,000 a day. The NFL typically covers artists’ expenses, which can run into the millions of dollars.