With a huge cast including Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny triumphs at the Super Bowl

Never, ever, before. No Super Bowl halftime has generated more advanced discussion from everyone from music fans to political pundits than Bad Bunny.

When Bad Bunny’s name was announced in late September as the halftime headliner for Super Bowl LX in February 2026, there was immediate blowback. From the president of the United States, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Fox News and other conservatives, complaining how un-American it is to have a Super Bowl singer performing exclusively in Spanish.

On Sunday night, many football viewers might not have understood the words Bad Bunny was singing, but nobody could doubt the creativity and showmanship of the global pop star from Puerto Rico.

Amazingly ambitious. No previous halftime performer has used more scenes — and probably more people — in 13 dizzying, dazzling, dance-happy minutes. Not to mention cameos by Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga, who sang in Spanish and English on a remixed version of “Die with a Smile,” as well as Cardi B and Pedro Pascal among the scores and scores of dancers in Santa Clara, Calif.

Bad Bunny (born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, hence Benito to his fans) wanted to give the world a well-rounded taste of Puerto Rico. On the Levi’s Stadium football field filled with tall crops, the megastar, clad in all white with a No. 64 football jersey with “Ocasio” on the back, took a tour of his island while clutching an old, heavily used American football.

He visited various scenes, including farm workers in pava straw hats, a bar, a boxing match, a jewelry stand, a makeup counter and more. And he staged a wedding (an actual wedding, as two of his fans got married) where Gaga crooned with a Mexican orchestra, and she danced with Bad Bunny to his “Baile Inolvidable.”

And not to be upstaged by his uber-famous American guest, Bad Bunny showed his daring, crashing through the roof of his pink “La Casita” landing in the arms of people inside, “stage diving” off another roof and climbing up a telephone pole.

How was the music? He did snippets of 12 of his songs, in such styles as reggaeton and bomba.

But frankly, the extensive and complex staging outshined the music itself. Near the end, Bad Bunny led a parade of flags, with Old Glory flying first followed by the Puerto Rican flag and then those of other nations.

In 13 minutes, the proud Puerto Rican uttered only three words in English: “God bless America,” but he also shouted out the names of Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and other Latin American countries. In the background on the stadium jumbotron, Bad Bunny displayed the words, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” And then he ended it by spiking that football in triumph!

“Seguimos aqui,” he declared, which translates to “We continue here.”

There was other Super Bowl music on Sunday.

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong — a firebrand who is an outspoken critic of the Trump administration and the wave of federal immigration agents in his wife’s hometown of the Twin Cities — was on his best behavior and didn’t mention current events.

As for the annual patriotic songs, pop singer Charlie Puth drew “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He stood behind his electric piano and showed a small, sweet voice, echoed by a choir and mini orchestra. His eyes were closed, his heart full as he performed one of the more low-wattage, yet admirable, renditions of the national anthem.

Grammy-winning Americana star Brandi Carlile, who has a bigger voice and greater visibility than Puth, handled “America the Beautiful.” Dressed in a Seattle Seahawks blue suit with a red-white-and-blue striped tie, Carlile, born outside Seattle, offered an understated reading, relying on her upper register with a slight intentional hiccup at the end. Accompanied only by her acoustic guitar and a cellist and violinist known as Sista Strings, she delivered a performance that was stirring in its starkness.

In the day’s first musical performance, Disney Channel actress/singer Coco Jones showed conviction and commitment on the “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black anthem, accompanied by a string octet.