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On Sunday, more than a hundred million Americans watched the Super Bowl, the country’s biggest sporting event.
The game saw the Seattle Seahawks defeat the New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in California, but it’s likely many were not just tuning in to see the players.
For millions around the world the main event at the Super Bowl is the halftime show.
This year saw Bad Bunny take to the stage. The Puerto Rican superstar was 2025’s most-streamed artist on Spotify, with over 19bn streams, and just last week was awarded a Grammy for album of the year.
Yet, when it was first announced he would be headlining the Super Bowl, his appointment proved controversial.
Many prominent conservatives viewed it as an affront to American values, with some incorrectly describing the artist who exclusively sings and raps in Spanish as a foreigner, apparently unaware that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States.
Bad Bunny, for his part, has not been quiet about his own politics.
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His first appearance on American television in 2018 saw him take to the stage on Jimmy Fallon and say: “After one year of the hurricane, there's still people without electricity in their homes. More than 3,000 people died and Trump is still in denial.”
Then, in 2019, after messages leaked showing Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rosselló and cabinet officials making racist and sexist comments, and mocking victims of Hurricane Maria, Bad Bunny abruptly paused a European tour to release protest song Afilando Los Cuchillos.
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The song soon became the soundtrack for the grassroots movement that later ousted the governor, with Bad Bunny attending many of the protests.
Now, amid widespread concern about the actions of immigration enforcement in the continental United States, Bad Bunny has refused to tour there.
On stage at the Grammys, while collecting an award, Bad Bunny declared defiantly: "Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say ICE out. We're not savages, we're not animals, we're not aliens – we're humans and we are Americans.”
To cap off his performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday, he said “God bless America” before leading a procession of people carrying the flags of all nations in the Americas across Levi’s Stadium.
Photography by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation