Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny made history a few hours ago as the first male solo Latin artist to perform the Super Bowl halftime show.
His performance, entirely in Spanish, was an energetic celebration of various musical styles – from reggaeton and salsa to Latin trap – featuring guest spots from Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and even cameos from Pedro Pascal, Karol G, Cardi B and Jessica Alba.
Bad Bunny, one of the world’s most streamed artists – went on to expand the meaning of “God Bless America” to include all the nations of the Americas.
“God bless America, whether it’s Chile, Argentina,” Bad Bunny said as he listed more than 20 nations in North and South America.
He ended the show on a message of unity, with “Together, we are America” written on a ball and a huge screen reading: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Hard sentiments to counter, but that didn’t stop Donald Trump.
Trump and his MAGA crowd have been up in arms about the choice of headliner for months, calling the decision “crazy”, “un-American” and “terrible”. His base also slammed Bad Bunny for being a “massive Trump hater”, an “anti-ICE activist”, and many bemoaned the fact that the artist has “no songs in English.”
Trump’s animosity only grew after Bad Bunny triumphed at the Grammys, with Bad Bunny delivering a message in protest of recent actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out! We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump - who was not at the show and attended a watch party in Florida - slammed Bad Bunny’s performance, calling it an “an affront to the Greatness of America” in a lengthy rant on Truth Social.
“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,” Trump wrote.
“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,” he fumed. “This “Show” is just a “slap in the face” to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day - including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD.”
It’s unclear whether Trump was watching the alternative MAGA show, Turning Point USA’s “All American” halftime show, headlined by Kid Rock and brimming with imagery of Charlie Kirk.
The counterprogramming, which streamed online, garnered roughly four million views - at one point as many as 6 million concurrent views on YouTube.
Meanwhile, every Super Bowl typically pulls in an average of around 127 million – with last year’s set by Kendrick Lamar setting a record with 133.5 million.
Official viewership numbers for Bad Bunny’s show are not out at the time of writing, but will be revealed later today. Preliminary estimates seem to suggest that Bad Bunny may have bested Kendrick Lamar’s numbers last year. Whatever the official numbers are, it’s a done deal that the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show reached a significantly larger audience than the “All American” show.
Shortly after Bad Bunny’s set concluded, California Governor and vcal Trump opponent Gavin Newsom posted: “America, the beautiful. THANK YOU, BAD BUNNY.”
Elsewhere, Green Day, which were opening for Bad Bunny and have never shied away from taking swipes at Trump, kept their show in the same spirit, staying away from overt political statements.
While in keeping with the message of unity, many were disappointed that the band did not make any provocative statements. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong even refrained from singing the tweaked lyric “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda” when performing the band’s hit song ‘American Idiot’.
Official broadcaster NBC did mute Armstrong when he sang the lyric “The subliminal mindfuck America” during the song, and while some fans were disappointed by the lack of punk spirit, others were more supportive of the band’s performance.
