Bad Bunny's Super Bowl set promises unity after right-wing outrage

Bad Bunny is gearing up to take the nation's biggest stage and wants football fans to know his performance is for everyone.

Apple Music dropped an official trailer highlighting the Grammy-winning reggaeton star's upcoming Super Bowl LX set on Feb. 8. The trailer shows the musician dancing in a vibrant forest to his hit song "BAILE INoLVIDABLE," alongside performers of various ages and from diverse backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities.

"The world will dance," the trailer concludes, underscoring the core theme of Bad Bunny's historic show, where Bad Bunny will be the first male Latin artist to headline "The Big Game" and the first Latin artist to headline solo.

He previously took the Super Bowl stage as a guest appearance in 2020, when Shakira and Jennifer Lopez co-headlined in Miami.

"What I’m feeling goes beyond myself," the rapper said in a statement shortly after he was announced as the headliner in September. "It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history."

"Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.” (“Go and tell your grandma that we’re going to be the Super Bowl halftime show.")

Bad Bunny slammed by Donald Trump, right-wing voices

Bad Bunny's call for unity comes after the halftime show announcement divided Americans, with many expressing outrage over the NFL's pick.

Plenty of Republicans were outraged by the pick, including President Donald Trump, who said he found it ridiculous that an artist he had never heard of would lead one of the world's largest stages. Trump told NewsMax's Greg Kelly that he had "never heard" of the artist in an Oct. 6 interview after the conservative news host alleged that Bad Bunny "hates ICE" and "accuses everything he doesn't like of racism."

"I don't know who he is. I don't know why they're doing it, it's, like, crazy," Trump replied. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous."

A Change.org petition to replace Bad Bunny with a musician who "embodies the heart and soul of American music," George Strait, has garnered over 120,000 signatures. In October, Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, announced it would host its own alternative halftime show.

How popular is Bad Bunny?

Bad Bunny, who sings almost exclusively in Spanish, was Spotify's most-streamed artist from 2020 to 2022 and again in 2025 with a loyal band of 27 million listeners and 60 million streams on the app daily.

According to statistics Spotify shared exclusively with USA TODAY, it would take someone over 1,200 centuries of nonstop music to listen to all the Bad Bunny streams from 2025 back-to-back.

In early January 2025, he became the first Latin artist to ever achieve 100 career entries on the Billboard Hot 100. He has a total of three wins at the Grammy Awards and 17 wins at the Latin Grammy Awards.

What has Bad Bunny said about Trump?

Bad Bunny has long criticized the Trump Administration amid widespread immigration raids and rollbacks to immigrant protections.

In September, he said he would not bring his upcoming "Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour" to the U.S., partly due to Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns.

When he hosted "Saturday Night Live" on Oct. 4, he mocked Fox News' outrage over the NFL's decision.

"You might not know this, but I'm doing the Super Bowl halftime show and I'm very happy," he said, then joked, "I think everyone is happy about it, even Fox News."

Is ICE coming to the Super Bowl?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency will be "all over" the Super Bowl, warning that "people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they are law-abiding Americans who love this country."

Contributing: Anna Kaufman and Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY