{"id":5621,"date":"2026-02-11T18:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5621"},"modified":"2026-02-11T18:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:27:19","slug":"super-bowl-lx-halftime-show-an-all-american-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5621","title":{"rendered":"Super Bowl LX Halftime Show: An All-American Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 36 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

2026 Grammy winner Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Mart\u00ednez Ocasio) finally delivered his much-anticipated halftime performance as the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots on February 8th, Super Bowl Sunday. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican artist offered a heartfelt, high-energy tribute to Latin communities across the United States and the wider Americas, dancing and performing through a sea of cultural references to his heritage. The set concluded with the phrase \u201cGod bless America,\u201d followed by a roll call of countries across North and South America \u2014 including, of course, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, not everyone welcomed the performance. Bad Bunny\u2019s set was almost entirely in Spanish, causing significant uproar in the current political climate in the U.S. Some viewers unfamiliar with his music questioned the lyrics a contrast to previous halftime shows, which were largely performed in English. The most prominent critic was Donald Trump, who labeled the performance a \u201cslap in the face to our country,\u201d claiming that \u201cnobody understands a word this guy is saying.\u201d Other critics included far-right commentator Benny Johnson, who dismissed the performance as \u201cunintelligible\u201d and \u201cforeign,\u201d despite Bad Bunny being born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backlash from right-wing media escalated further when Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk, hosted an alternative halftime livestream. Headlined by Kid Rock, a vocal Trump supporter, the event leaned heavily on Christian imagery and their interpretation of American values. The event was attended by Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if far-right critics argue that Bad Bunny\u2019s performance failed to represent \u201creal\u201d America, the question becomes: who, then, was it representing? According to the 2020 U.S. Census, roughly 68 million Americans identify as Latino, making them the second-largest ethnic group in the country behind white Americans. Whilst we can\u2019t assume that all Latino Americans are Bad Bunny fans, the performance\u2019s cultural references, music, dance, and fashion placed a significant and often underrepresented segment of American identity on one of the world\u2019s largest stages. It\u2019s a significant group not just to the communities themselves but to the Republican Party, as more Hispanic voters voted for Trump in 2024 than for Kamala Harris. So, when Trump directly attacks the cultural identity of Latinos, he\u2019s directly attacking the American voters who helped put him in office. The performance, thus, whilst not being in English, still found plenty of ways to represent millions of Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if these reasons aren\u2019t enough to justify why Bad Bunny was chosen to perform at this year\u2019s halftime show, the fact that he was 2025\u2019s most-listened-to artist on Spotify in the U.S. meant he earned it. And whilst not everyone could understand every lyric being sung or empathize with every cultural reference being made, everyone should be able to understand the message Bad Bunny delivered at the end of his performance: \u201cThe only thing more powerful than love is hate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Sanjanaa Radhakrishnan<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: ‘Bad Bunny performs during halftime’<\/a> by Lynne Sladky, 2026 \/\/ AP Photo <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2026 Grammy winner Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Mart\u00ednez Ocasio) finally delivered his much-anticipated halftime performance as the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":5622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[607,12,347,770,1,37,29],"tags":[588,375,771,436,377],"class_list":["post-5621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-latest","category-latin-america","category-sport","category-uncategorized","category-us","category-world","tag-latest","tag-music","tag-sport","tag-trump","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}