This February, Benito Antonio Martínez “Bad Bunny” Ocasio made headlines for both the Grammy’s and Super Bowl. Martínez headlined the Super Bowl LX halftime show merely a week after he scored major wins at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, taking home Album of the Year and becoming the first artist with a fully Spanish album to win such an accolade. Though he was not the first Latin American artist to receive a Grammy in one of the four major categories, this was the first instance since 2000, when the Latin rock band Santana scored both Album and Record of the Year awards.
The heartfelt moment where Martínez broke down into tears as he was announced as the winner, bled into the beginning of the Super Bowl. The halftime show portrayed Bad Bunny handing a younger version of himself the Grammy as he watched the acceptance speech, a moment that moved many viewers with its inspiring message.
Bad Bunny’s selection as this year’s halftime performer back in September, however, was met with immediate backlash. Social media and news outlets were filled with complaints before he ever took the stage. Some argued that a halftime show performed fully in Spanish would be inappropriate for a primarily American, non-Spanish speaking audience who would feel alienated as they would be “unable to understand.” Others insisted that an “American artist” should headline the Super Bowl, an ironic comment considering that Puerto Rico is, in fact, a U.S. territory, and that Martínez himself is a legal American citizen. After the performance, some even criticized the show for lacking “white representation.”
This discomfort, however, only underscored the very thing the performance would go on to prove. The show itself consisted of a medley of many of Martínez’s top hits, beginning with the cheeky “Titi Me Pregunto” and weaving in songs from the albums“YHLQMDLG,” “Un Verano Sin Ti,” “Nadie Sabe Lo que Va a Pasar Mañana,” and, of course, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.” The setlist included songs like the feminist anthem “Yo Perreo Sola,” the salsa sensation “BAILE INoLVIDABLE,” club classics like “EoO” and “Safaera” and even a salsa version of Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile.”
What was perhaps most striking about the performance, however, was the intentionality behind every aspect of the show. Where “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” already served as Bad Bunny’s love letter to Puerto Rico, the halftime show played like a full serenade to it, with each element of the set design, act and setlist highlighting a different facet of its culture.
Previous half-time shows have been applauded for implementing impressive scenography and choreography. For example in Rihanna’s 2023 show dancers performed across suspended platforms and in 2025 Kendrick Lamar’s dancers moved in formations to represent the “great American game.” Bad Bunny’s performance, however, stood out not only for its production design but for its presented narrative. Similar to Kendrick, Martínez created a show that was not merely designed to entertain, but to tell the story of his people, his island and his culture on one of the largest stages in the world.
Puerto Ricans and Latinos alike took to social media to express their joy at the specific cultural references included throughout the show, with many seeing themselves in the nail salons, piragua stands and even the boy using three chairs to sleep during a wedding.
“bad bunny is so real for including the kid who’s always sleeping on two chairs at a party 😭😭😭,”said one user on X.
“Beautiful representation of Latino culture from Bad Bunny down to the little boy sleeping on chairs at the boda,” said another.
Bad Bunny even went as far as to reference the destruction of Puerto Rico at the hands of Hurricane Maria during his performance of “El Apagon,” in which he climbed a light post not only to represent the island’s ongoing struggle with electrical outages, but also to foreground the devastation of infrastructure during the tragedy. This is not the first time Martínez has shone a light on this issue. In 2024, he released “Una Velita” as a way of speaking out about the disaster and condemning the government’s mishandling of the crisis, which led to the deaths of hundreds.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show will go down in history as — if not the best — at least the most culturally relevant show in recent years. In a time of uncertainty, where Latinos hardly see themselves represented in media outside of yellow filters and stereotyped, drug trafficking characters, where Latinos are feared as dangerous criminals and often treated as such, Bad Bunny has shown us that we are not unheard or alone. We are anything but alone — we are there, with him, on that stage. Dancing, singing, calling out the names of our countries and waving our flags. In a time of fear and hate, Bad Bunny continued his message calling for love.
The performance ended with Bad Bunny listing out all of the names of the American countries as dancers ran out carrying their flags, a move made to highlight that ‘America’ describes an entire continent, not just one country. A massive screen lit up behind him with the words “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” echoing his Grammys acceptance speech. Various clips of viewers becoming excited and tearing up at the mention of their countries have since surfaced online, proving the significance of the gesture (I, too, teared up as I heard Costa Rica called out).
And as “DtMF” blared out the speakers and the dancers ran across the field, Bad Bunny looked into the camera and closed his performance by saying “seguimos aquí” — we are still here. In our countries. In our homes. In America. Latinos are here to stay, and everything Bad Bunny did on that stage proved it.
Photo by Mihai Moisa via Unsplash
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