SAN FRANCISCO — A Bad Bunny look-alike contest at a San Francisco restaurant snowballed into a street party after hundreds of fans of the global superstar showed up to cheer his doppelgangers and sing along to his music ahead of his Super Bowl halftime show this weekend.
More than 30 contestants from across the Bay Area, including men with tight curly hair, women in wigs and fake facial hair and a kindergartener in a fedora, white tank top and bow tie, competed for a $100 prize at a packed Mexican restaurant in the Mission neighborhood.
They channeled the 31-year-old Puerto Rican singer through some of his signature looks, donning straw hats known as a ''pava'' and traditionally worn by Puerto Rican farmers, or a shearling aviator hat like the one the artist has worn at times since the release his 2025 album, ''Debi Tirar Mas Fotos,'' which translates to ''I should have taken more photos.'' It won album of the year at the Grammy Awards on Sunday.
Adam Fox, 24, and his friend Alejandro Kurt, 23, traveled from Belmont, a city about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco, after both men with curly dark hair and dark facial hair were told they look like Bad Bunny.
Fox, an aspiring actor who wore a suit, bowtie, and dark sunglasses, said he is a fan of Bad Bunny's music even though he doesn't speak Spanish.
His music ''is like art. You don't have to totally understand it. It could just be something that's beautiful,'' Fox said.
The contestants imitated Bad Bunny's ''perreo,'' or twerking, and repeated his criticism of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign with one wnnabe-Bad Bunny in a wig and a black tuxedo holding an ''ICE Out'' sign as she danced through the packed Tacolicious restaurant to roaring cheers from the crowd.
But the artist's music remained the focus of the lookalike contest organized by Mission Loteria, a group that promotes Latino businesses, with people spilling out to the street where a DJ played Bad Bunny's most-loved tracks and some in costumes resembling the Puerto Rican crested toad, an endangered species that is featured in one of his music videos, danced with contestants.
