By Sarah Hines Y11
On the 8th of February, 2026, the Super Bowl took place in San Francisco, California. Many
celebrities and influential people attended, including Roger Federer, Lewis Hamilton, Kim
Kardashian, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Chris Pratt and many more. The half-time show was
performed by the rising singer from Puerto Rico: Bad Bunny. His performance received many
criticisms and diverse reactions from the people who attended and watched it.
Firstly, Bad Bunny is the first Latin artist to perform solo at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Even if there have been instances of songs in Spanish, such as during Shakira’s performance
in 2020. His role as a performer at the Super Bowl caused a lot of controversy, especially since he had received only a week before a Grammy for “Album of the Year”, something that was unheard of for a Latin artist.
During his performance, Bad Bunny evoked many problems that his country, Puerto Rico, is
going through. For instance, the sugar cane fields at the beginning evoked the colonial past
of Puerto Rico or his song on the electricity poles criticizes their privatization of electricity
which has led to frequent blackouts. Though the most controversial moment was his closing
song “Together, We Are America”, where he listed all the countries in America and carrying
all their flags. On the screen was his quote from the Grammys: “The only thing more
powerful than hate is love.” This became greatly controversial since he was evoking the fact
that all the other nationalities present in America are also American, and have the right to
live there.
There were many different reactions to this. The most talked about was, of course, Trump.
Who didn’t attend this year. According to most sources, he called the show “absolutely
“terrible”, saying that it was “an affront to America’s greatness” since “nobody could
understand what he was saying ”.
On the other hand, most celebrities greatly enjoyed the show, in fact, Lady Gaga performed
with him, Pedro Pascal appeared as a dancer. Many of them posted afterwards on social
media how much they enjoyed it. Including Kacey Musgraves, who said, ‘That made me feel
more proudly American than anything Kid Rock has ever done.”
Many people also said that the show itself wasn’t very good for those who were attending
since they couldn’t see much. It was more designed to be filmed and seen on screen. This
was therefore very disappointing for the people who came there for the concert itself since
they didn’t have a good view.
Nevertheless, despite all the criticism, Bad Bunny’s half-time show was ranked one of the
most watched halftime performances in Super Bowl history, with over 128.2 million viewers,
right behind Kendrick Lamar, Usher and Michael Jackson.
