Culture Bad Bunny Will Headline Super Bowl Halftime Show - Spanish rapper will perform at America's most-watched concert

The Latin superstar known for hits including “MIA,” “I Like It” and “Me Porto Bonito” will perform in February in Santa Clara, Calif.​

Bad Bunny, who has won three Grammys, at a concert this month in San Juan, P.R. Alejandro Granadillo/Associated Press

By Emmanuel Morgan
Sept. 28, 2025 Updated 10:26 p.m. ET

The Latin superstar Bad Bunny, who has won three Grammys while bringing Spanish-language music to the top of the charts, will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February, the N.F.L. announced on Sunday.

The Super Bowl is consistently the most-watched television program of the year, with more than 130 million people viewing last season’s halftime show featuring the rapper Kendrick Lamar. The next Super Bowl will take place on Feb. 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.”

Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was born in Puerto Rico and rose to fame through hits such as “MIA,” “I Like It,” “Me Porto Bonito” and “Dákiti.” He has been nominated for 10 Grammys and will host this week’s season opener of “Saturday Night Live.”

This will be the seventh Super Bowl halftime show produced by Roc Nation, the entertainment and sports company founded by the billionaire rapper Jay-Z. Its agreement with the N.F.L. came amid tensions over the league’s handling of protests by the quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who had begun kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence against people of color.

Bad Bunny has been vocal about social issues affecting Puerto Rico. In an interview this month with i-D magazine, he said he did not incorporate the mainland United States into his latest tour because he was fearful his fans would be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In an Instagram post last fall, Bad Bunny published an eight-minute video in Spanish in which he described his pride for the island. He captioned the post “garbage,” an allusion to when the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during a campaign rally for Donald J. Trump.

Weeks later, Bad Bunny endorsed Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

“What Benito has done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “We are honored to have him on the world’s biggest stage.”

The next Super Bowl halftime show will be broadcast on NBC. The N.F.L. announced Bad Bunny’s selection on social media and during halftime of “Sunday Night Football” with a video of the artist sitting atop a yellow field goal crossbar on a beach at sunset. His song “Callaita” played in the background.

There had been weeks of rumors that the pop star Taylor Swift would be the headliner. Her 21-month Eras Tour, which ended in December, grossed a record $2 billion in ticket sales, and she announced her engagement to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in August after nearly two years of dating. She will release her 12th original studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Friday.

“We would always love to have Taylor play,” Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, said in a recent interview on the “Today” show, a comment that fed the speculation. “She is a special, special talent, and, obviously, she would be welcome at any time.”

The N.F.L. in 2019 partnered with Roc Nation, asking the company to produce the Super Bowl halftime shows. Since then, the halftime performances have predominantly featured hip-hop and R&B artists: Lamar, Usher, Rihanna and, in 2022, a medley including Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Eminem. Roc Nation and the N.F.L. featured Latin music for the partnership’s first Super Bowl halftime show in 2020, when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performed in Miami Gardens, Fla.

The streaming service Apple Music became the show’s title sponsor in 2022.

A correction was made on Sept. 28, 2025:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a capsule summary with this article misspelled the name of a Bad Bunny song. It is “Me Porto Bonito,” not “Me Porto Benito.”

Source (Archive)

 

[The_Bladder_Splatter]

So everyone is wondering who the fuck is this guy and how he managed to get into the superbowl half time show?, You see it emerged in latin america around the 80s, it was a further degradation of reggae that resulted from underground DJs remixing the rhythm to a more "club" style and the reason as to why it took off over the decades like a slow but steady stream of shit is very simple: it's music you hear at parties & clubs to get drunk, high and fuck, since it's the only activity that most latin americans indulge to cope with their living conditions it eventually became a part of daily life itself , and what made Bad Bunny so popular it's also simple: he shits out albums, going so far as to release three in 2020 and panders to whatever politically correct thing happening at the moment , it's possibly the biggest snowball effect on cultural degradation since Hegel's philosophy

 

[BikeLock]

Newsflash dumbasses, Latinos like Beisbol and Futbol a LOT more than Football, stop fucking pandering to the non English speaking demo in the USA.

Hey now, Raiders fans still exist, for now.

 

[indomitable snowman]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7011620/2026/02/02/bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime-nfl-player-poll/ / https://archive.ph/eDrZw

“I don’t even know who Bad Bunny is,” said an NFC offensive player. “I always think it should be an American. I think they’re trying too hard with this international stuff.” (Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States.)

Said a different NFC offensive player: “I do not like it. (I’d prefer) anyone who’s synonymous with football and football culture. I feel like there’s tons of artists out there who are fans of the game.”

And an AFC offensive player said: “I think there are better examples of character and morality than Bad Bunny.”

“I’ve heard his music obviously, but I don’t speak Spanish so I’m not a big fan,” said one NFC defensive player. “But I do think it’s cool to have him, because America is based on diversity. America was built on immigration. So I feel like having him just furthers that American dream. I like it. I like the choice.”

Added an NFC special teamer: “I love the culture behind it.”

Added another NFC offensive player: “Heck yeah. It's going to be a good time. The girls like Bad Bunny, so of course, we're going to like it.”

 

[Farm Hand]

My only exposure to Bad Bunny before was when he was on WWE for about a month a couple of years ago. His celebrity match was pretty good, and he seemed like a pretty normal guy then. But I guess that was an exception, and he's ordinarily a metrosexual weirdo?