Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show Is The Real American Dream

Santa Clara, Calif. — When Bad Bunny promised that “the world will dance” during the Apple Music halftime show at Super Bowl LX, he was selling himself short. In 13 minutes of non-stop, Spanish-language spectacle, the Puerto Rican superstar didn’t just make the globe move — he rewrote the rules of America’s biggest sporting ritual.

Performing at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday night, the six-time Grammy winner became the first Latino and first Spanish-speaking artist to headline a Super Bowl halftime show as a solo act. Clad in all-white and framed by a field of sugar cane, he delivered a set list that spanned his greatest hits — “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Monaco,” “Party,” “Safaera” — without ever switching to English.

The history-making display came only seven days after Bad Bunny’s album Debí Tirar Más Fotos became the first Spanish-language release to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, extending a landmark month for Latin music.

The 30-year-old artist was technically alone as headliner, yet he shared the stage with an intergenerational constellation of Latin pride. Lady Gaga emerged for a sultry, Latin-tinged take on her Bruno Mars collaboration “Die With a Smile,” while Ricky Martin, whose late-’90s crossover smash “Livin’ la Vida Loca” helped usher Spanish pop onto U.S. airwaves, reprised his role as cultural trailblazer. Between songs, surprise cameos from Karol G, Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Alix Earle and Pedro Pascal kept cameras panning and social media timelines buzzing.

Scenes of Puerto Rican life unfolded behind him: older men clacking dominoes, vendors handing out piragua, a couple exchanging vows in an on-stage wedding confirmed as legally binding by Variety and NBC Sports’ Rohan Nadkarni. Dancers in streetwear moved through cane stalks as the stadium screens pulsed with the Caribbean’s colors.

Mid-set, Bad Bunny paused to say “God Bless America,” then shouted out every Latin American nation from Mexico to Bolivia, Puerto Rico included. A towering billboard flashed his answer to critics: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

The line doubled as a rebuttal to detractors who have attacked the artist since the NFL announced his halftime slot in September. Conservative commentators objected to his Spanish lyrics and outspoken opposition to former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Turning Point USA counter-programmed an “All-American Halftime Show” headlined by Trump supporter Kid Rock. On Sunday, Trump himself blasted Bad Bunny’s performance on Truth Social, calling it “absolutely terrible” and “an affront to the Greatness of America.”

Bad Bunny has never shied from the fray. Accepting the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album earlier this month, he declared, “ICE out,” adding, “We are not animals. We are humans, and we are Americans.” He dedicated that win to “all the people that had to leave their homeland — their country — to follow their dreams.”

Sunday’s show offered a similar dedication writ large across America’s most-watched television platform. By the final bar of “Safaera,” the message was unmistakable: the American dream now speaks Spanish, dances reggaetón, and wears a white durag under stadium lights.

Bad Bunny first touched a Super Bowl stage in 2020, guesting alongside Jennifer Lopez and Shakira in an Emmy-winning spectacle. Five years later, he returned as the main attraction and left with the culture firmly in his grasp.

Green Day, Charlie Puth, Coco Jones and Brandi Carlile provided pregame entertainment, but the night’s enduring image belongs to the boy from Vega Baja who turned a halftime slot into a declaration of belonging — for every Spanish speaker told their language has no place here, and for anyone who still believes love outmuscles hate.

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl takeover wasn’t a departure from tradition; it was the next chapter — proof that the most American dream of all is the one that keeps expanding to include new voices, new rhythms, and new definitions of home.