Bad Bunny blew the minds of fans and viewers as he headlined the halftime show at Sunday’s Super Bowl LX with surprise support from Lady Gaga and Pedro Pascal.
Gaga made an unexpected appearance with 31-year-old Puerto Rican performer (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) after the opening medley.
They performed at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, where the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots are facing off.
Gaga was dressed in a lovely blue ruched sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline as she appeared at a microphone.
She performed Die With A Smile, but in a rearranged Salsa-style version.
Ricky Martin also joined the show later to perform Lo que le pasó a Hawaii.
‘As a lady gaga fan and a bad bunny fan this halftime show was straight up crack in my veins,’ one fan gushed on X.
But a less impressed fan theorized that ‘bad bunny had to bring out lady gaga bc he ran out of hits.’
Bad Bunny blew the minds of fans and viewers as he headlined the halftime show at Sunday’s Super Bowl LX with surprise support from Lady Gaga and Pedro Pascal
Gaga made an unexpected appearance with 31-year-old Puerto Rican performer (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) after his first number
Gaga, 39, was dressed in a sleeveless ruched blue dress as she danced with Bad Bunny
Fans gushed about the ‘nice surprise’ that Gaga’s appearance was
Leading up to the Super Bowl, fans had wondered if Bad Bunny would use his biggest platform yet to speak out against the second Trump administration and immigration crackdowns across the US led by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Even before the hitmaker took to the field, some fans grumbled on social media about his selection.
‘Picking between Kid Rock and Bad Bunny for a halftime show is like choosing between the recent Republican and Democrat[ic] presidential nominees for president. They both sucked,’ seethed one account on X (formerly Twitter).
Others said they would be tuning in to watch Kid Rock’s competing, unofficial halftime show instead.
‘Bad Bunny or country music. Guess I’ll do the halftime dishes,’ joked one user who wasn’t a fan of either option.
It wasn’t Bad Bunny’s first time performing at the Super Bowl, as he previously spiced up 2020’s Super Bowl LIV halftime show with a guest appearance with co-headliners Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.
However, he became the first solo Latin headliner to lead a Super Bowl halftime show with his performance.
His performance comes just a week after he made history at the 68th Grammy Awards ceremony by winning the album of the year award for Debí Tirar Más Fotos.
Even before the hitmaker took to the field, some fans grumbled on social media about his selection
Others said they were tuning in to watch Kid Rock perform instead
He performed at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. (pictured), as the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots faced off
He first performd as a guest at 2020’s Super Bowl LIV, which was co-headlined by Shakira (pictured) and Jennifer Lopez. Bad Bunny became the first Latin artist to solely headline the show
The win marked the first time a Spanish-language LP has won the coveted Grammys honor.
Bad Bunny was clearly emotional after his Grammy win, as he sat down in disbelief and cried for several seconds with his head in his hand after his name was read.
In his speech — which he delivered mostly in Spanish — Bad Bunny joined other stars in supporting immigrants and alluding to ICE raids across the US: ‘I want to dedicate this award to all the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams.’
But he made his criticism of the agency explicit elsewhere in his acceptance speech.
‘Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ICE Out,’ Bad Bunny stated before the Grammys audience erupted in cheers and applause.
‘We are not savage. We are not animals. We are not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans,’ the rapper continued.
‘The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So, please, we need to be different,’ he continued. ‘If we fight, we have to do it with love.’
Bad Bunny added, ‘We don’t hate them, we love our people, we love our family, and that’s the way to do it, with love.’
Following his ICE criticism, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was forced to address Bad Bunny’s upcoming halftime show on Monday.
His halftime show comes a week after he made history at the Grammys by winning the coveted album of the year award, marking the first time it has gone to a Spanish-language album
Bad Bunny, who won three Grammys that night, delivered a strong rebuke of ICE in his acceptance speech; pictured February 1 in LA
But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell waved away concerns about Bad Bunny’s halftime show after the Grammys, saying the Puerto Rican singer ‘understood the platform he was on’
Speaking at his annual press conference at Super Bowl week, Goodell raved that Bad Bunny is ‘one of the greatest artists in the world’, and he added that the Puerto Rican singer ‘understood the platform he was on.’
‘This platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talent, and to be able to use this moment to do that. I think artists in the past have done that,’ Goodell said. ‘I think Bad Bunny understands that and I think he’ll have a great performance.’
The NFL and Super Bowl were engulfed in controversy beginning in September, when Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime show performer.
The choice was attacked by not only conservatives and right-wing pundits, but also highly placed government officials, who rebuked Bad Bunny over his past criticisms of the current administration’s controversial immigration policies.
The hitmaker notably didn’t perform any concerts on the mainland US for his latest concert tour, which he said was due to the potential presence of ICE agents.
‘There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the US, and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times,’ Bad Bunny told I-D Magazine after announcing his tour. ‘All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent. I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the US. But specifically, for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an unincorporated territory of the United States.
People from the US could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world,’ he continued. ‘But there was the issue of — like, f***ing ICE could be outside [my concert].
‘And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,’ he added.
Right-wing pundits and administration officials lashed out at the NFL after Bad Bunny’s halftime show as announced
In an interview from October, Trump said it was ‘absolutely ridiculous’ that Bad Bunny had been booked, and he claimed that he wouldn’t attend the Super Bowl because of his selection; pictured February 3 in Washington, DC
Donald Trump was one of the most vociferous critics of the NFL’s selection of Bad Bunny to perform at the Super Bowl.
In an interview from October, Trump said it was ‘absolutely ridiculous’ that Bad Bunny had been booked, and he claimed that he wouldn’t attend the Super Bowl because of his selection.
His administration has also said that ICE agents will be out in force to patrol the Bay Area during the game.
‘We’ll be all over that place,’ said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has been forced to defend her performance in recent weeks after multiple protesters were shot and killed in Minneapolis by ICE agents, including Renée Good and Alex Pretti.
Good, 37, was fatally shot in the face in her car by an agent who was filming the encounter with his cell phone in one hand.
Pretti, a VA nurse who worked in the intensive care unit, was shot from behind a combined 10 times by two ICE agents after he tried to intervene on behalf of a woman agents had shoved to the ground.
Video of his killing appears to show that Pretti, who was armed with handgun, had been disarmed by one agent moments before two others shot him repeatedly while he was on the ground.
Bad Bunny performed amid widespread outrage after ICE agents shot and killed multiple people in Minneapolis, including Renée Good and the VA nurse Alex Pretti; ICE agents are pictured in Minneapolis on January 28
ICE reportedly plans to patrol the Super Bowl, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem previously said fans should steer clear of it ‘unless they are law-abiding Americans who love this country. We’ll be all over that place… we’re gonna enforce the law’; Bad Bunny is pictured in April 2024 in Detroit, Michigan
Their deaths have set off renewed protests across the US against the Trump administration and ICE.
A DHS official previously claimed about the Super Bowl that ‘Those who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.’
Noem had previously said fans should steer clear of the Super Bowl ‘unless they are law-abiding Americans who love this country.’
‘We’ll be all over that place… we’re gonna enforce the law,’ she said.
Late last week, ESPN reported that an NFL team owner shared their concerns about Bad Bunny’s halftime show with Goodell.
They allegedly shared their fears that giving the Puerto Rican hitmaker such a big platform could lead the government to lash out by refusing to approve a deal to sell several of the league’s assets, including the NFL Network, to ESPN.
In exchange, the NFL would receive a 10-percent stake in ESPN.
According to a source, the team owner berated Goodell and said he ‘should’ve thought through that better.’
Bad Bunny previously refused to book any shows on his most recent tour in the mainland US to avoid ICE raids. The performer, who was born in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico, is an American citizen; pictured February 1 in LA
But despite the alleged internal warnings, the NFL didn’t give any indication that it was having second thoughts about booking Bad Bunny.
Bad Bunny, who hails from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, began writing and performing his own music when he was just 14, and by 2016 he had already scored a record deal on the strength of a song he posted to SoundCloud.
His early successes on the Latin charts led to high-profile collaborations with stars including Cardi B, J Balvin and Drake.
In 2020, his album YHLQMDLG debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 albums chart, making it the highest-charting album on the charts that was completely in Spanish.
His most recent album debuted at the top of the chart and was widely praised by critics, many of whom placed it on their lists of the best albums of 2025.
