Bad Bunny Didn’t Just Make History in 2025 — He Defined the Year

“You might not know this, but I’m doing the Super Bowl halftime show,” quipped Bad Bunny during his Saturday Night Live opening monologue in October. Few in the audience needed the smirking update. It had been less than a week since the Puerto Rican artist was announced as the headliner of the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, and reactions were already widespread, loud and drastically divided.

Notably, none of the most extreme reactions seemed to have anything to do with Bad Bunny (born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) as an artist or performer. To the left, an endless string of columnists exulted him as a critic of President Donald Trump and an anti-MAGA crusader for immigrant rights whose performance would give the middle finger to his haters. To the right, heavyweight pundits lamented the ceding of a beloved American tradition to “somebody who seems to hate America so much,” as Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski told The Benny Show. The misinformed called him a foreigner, even though Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Trump had an opinion, too, saying on Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports that the booking was a “terrible decision.”

Bad Bunny’s booking marks the first time in the Super Bowl’s 60-year history that an artist who exclusively performs in a language other than English will headline. Only four Latin acts — Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Christina Aguilera and Gloria Estefan — have preceded him. Among them, Aguilera sang only in English at the time, and Lopez, Shakira and Estefan all were known for their English-language hits. And while this historic booking seems provocative to some, Bad Bunny, halftime show booker Roc Nation and the NFL have not said his performance is meant to send a political message — because it isn’t.

Throughout his career, Bad Bunny has never been one for political proclamations, save for those directly related to his homeland, including a 2017 critique of Trump’s maligned visit after Hurricane Maria. Backstage at a benefit concert for the island, Bad Bunny wore a T-shirt with a question in Spanish that translated to “Are you a tweeter or a president?” and pointedly said on camera to Billboard that the message was aimed at “our friend.” Then he added, “He’ll need a Mexican or Puerto Rican to translate because I don’t think he speaks Spanish.”

Nearly a decade later, it’s largely because Bad Bunny performs in Spanish that his booking has garnered so much attention. For as much as he has tried to stay above the fray, he has been thrust into the thick of it, not so much by virtue of what he has done, but who he is.

Of course, halftime performances are always fodder for debate. (Kendrick Lamar’s incendiary 2025 show came with its share of detractors.) As NFL commissioner Roger Goodell noted at a news conference in October, “I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. It’s pretty hard to do when you have literally hundreds of millions of people that are watching.” However, not since Janet Jackson’s 2004 wardrobe malfunction has a headliner been so dissected, praised and demonized — and that’s months before the show is even slated to happen.

The controversy boils down to the fact that Bad Bunny is a Latin artist who has attained unparalleled, sustained success that crosses boundaries of language, taste, genre and demographics by singing exclusively in Spanish — a language of immigrants in the United States. Having him perform on not only the biggest but also the most traditionally “American” of stages has proved to be a bridge too far for some.

According to a Quinnipiac University National Sports Poll published Oct. 27, nearly half of Americans (48%) approve of having Bad Bunny perform at the Super Bowl, while 29% disapprove, with opinions divided predominantly by age and party line — 74% of Democrats approve and 63% of Republicans disapprove.

Bad Bunny’s booking comes at an unprecedented moment in both American politics and Latin music. The country will be one year into the second term of its most polarizing president of this century, one who has made deporting illegal immigrants — often in a violent, highly visible and intimidating fashion — a cornerstone of his administration. New analysis conducted by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs’ Center for Neighborhood Knowledge found Latinos accounted for nine out of 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests during the first six months of 2025.

At the same time, Latin music has never been so successful or ubiquitous in the country’s history. Luminate’s 2025 Mid-Year Music Report found Latin remains the No. 5 core genre in the United States in terms of total consumption, only slightly behind country. In the midst of that success, Bad Bunny has become a household name — and a reticent linchpin in a cultural war.

Still, his booking was never meant to make any sort of statement. Rather, it’s the result of a calculated decision. Latinos are the biggest minority in the United States, nearing 20% of the total population, and their appetite for football is growing. “When I was hired by the NFL, the edict was very clear: We needed to ensure this league is relevant to our fans today, five years from today and 10 years from today,” NFL senior vp of global brand and consumer marketing Marissa Solís told Billboard in 2022. “As I think about the future and making sure this league is relevant today and tomorrow, the first thing I think about is Latinos.”

Since then, the NFL now broadcasts its games in Spanish, and its global Latin fan base has grown from 31 million in 2022 to nearly 100 million today. This season, there are 47 Latino players in the league, up from 25 in 2023. And outside the United States, Mexico and Brazil are the NFL’s biggest markets, with a reported 39.5 million and 35.9 million fans, respectively.

Music has played a pivotal role in that expansion, with the NFL incorporating Latin music into its promotional campaigns and playing games in Brazil and Spain this year — featuring Karol G and Daddy Yankee and Bizarrap, respectively, as halftime headliners.

On his end, Bad Bunny has also expanded since 2020. He’s fluent enough in English that he has been able to host Saturday Night Live twice and star in movies like Happy Gilmore 2 and Bullet Train alongside the likes of Adam Sandler and Brad Pitt. He has topped the Billboard 200 four times with albums entirely in Spanish. And he made history this year as the only Spanish-language artist to score Grammy Award nominations in three main categories in the same year: album of the year for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS and record and song of the year for “DtMF.” And now, he’ll headline a Super Bowl halftime show.

“It’s more than a win for myself. It’s a win for all of us. Our footprints and our contribution in this country, no one will ever be able to take that away or erase it,” he said in Spanish during his Saturday Night Live monologue. “And if you didn’t understand now what I just said,” he added in English, “you have four months to learn!”

This story appears in the Dec. 13, 2025, issue of Billboard.