"When Bad Bunny took the field at the 2026 Super Bowl for a historic, joyful halftime show, he wore a jersey with his Latino heritage stitched into its very fabric. It's an apt metaphor for his performance, which eschewed explicit anti-ICE statements (he covered that at the Grammys, anyway) in favor of celebration with a side of symbolism."
"While performing "El Apagón," a song about the frequent blackouts and infrastructure issues affecting Puerto Ricans, Bad Bunny brought this symbolism to the forefront, waving the Puerto Rican flag. He also proclaimed in English, "God bless America," and brandished a football printed with the phrase "Together, We Are America." He added in Spanish, "We're still here." ( Puerto Rico is a US territory, and Puerto Ricans are American citizens.)"
"It was a stark and knowing contrast to the Latinophobia and anti-immigrant messaging hawked by the Trump administration. So much so that President Donald Trump complained online about Bad Bunny's performance and his choice to sing primarily in Spanish. "The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense," Trump wrote on Truth Social after Bad Bunny left the stage. "Nobody understands a word this guy is saying.""
Bad Bunny headlined the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show with a performance rooted in Puerto Rican and Latino imagery. The stage evoked sugar cane fields, a storefront labeled La Marqueta, and vendors selling tacos and piraguas. He performed "El Apagón," a song about frequent blackouts and infrastructure issues, and waved the Puerto Rican flag. He proclaimed "God bless America," brandished a football reading "Together, We Are America," and said in Spanish, "We're still here." The show favored celebratory symbolism over explicit anti-ICE rhetoric and contrasted sharply with Latinophobic rhetoric from the Trump administration, which criticized the set and use of Spanish.
Read at Business Insider
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