Despite all the backlash he received for being selected to perform the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime shows, Bad Bunny got over 135.4M viewers.
Bad Bunny didn’t walk onto the Super Bowl halftime stage to prove anything. He didn’t arrive in opposition, or anger, or resistance. He arrived with love—and that choice is what made the performance land as deeply as it did.
The tone was set long before the first song. When Bad Bunny accepted Album of the Year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, he closed his speech with a line that felt simple but carried weight: “The only thing stronger than hate is love.”
That message wasn’t left behind at the Grammys. He carried it onto the biggest stage in the country, not as a slogan, but as a thesis.
This halftime show wasn’t about separation. It was about connection.
The pacing was fast, intentional, and cinematic. This wasn’t a show designed for the stadium alone — it was designed for the camera, for the world watching at home. A recognition that the audience was global, not local.
The show was filled with so many symbolisms and little nuggets of latin life: elders playing dominos, piraguas, boxers Xander Rayas and Edgar Berlanga sparring, a little boy sleeping on 3 chairs and the broken light posts.
It’s also interesting who chose to be present. Not announced. Not spotlighted. But there. Cardi B, Karol G, Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba and UM influencer Alix Earle were all spotted at Benito’s infamous casita.
Another monumental appearance was Lady Gaga. Her presence acted as a co-sign, lending credibility not just to the performance, but to the message behind it about unifying our cultures. Performing “Die With a Smile” — reimagined in a salsa arrangement — is musical unification at its finest.
When Ricky Martin stepped out to perform “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” I broke into tears. Ricky Martin hadn’t appeared during La Residencia in Puerto Rico, which made his presence here feel deliberate.
The song itself is a warning about colonization, about culture turned into a product, about what happens when land and people are reduced to monetization.
The energy didn’t drop after that moment. A mix of “El Apagón” and “Café con Ron” reminds us that joy and protest can coexist. And then, finally, he performed “DtMF”as the emotional punctuation mark of the entire night.
Puerto Rican and Latino culture hasn’t just arrived. It’s always been here. It seems to have required this specific geopolitical moment, this level of repetition, this much visibility, before it was fully allowed to be heard.
The message didn’t change. The circumstances did.