The 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, headlined by Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny, also known as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, brought everything to the table — or better yet, the field — showcasing a combination of history, celebration, pride, community, resilience, culture, and hope.
Averaging 128.2 million viewers through its runtime, the success of Ocasio’s halftime show is no surprise. So far this year, he has been on a roll, winning three Grammys for his album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” including album of the year. The album’s name translates to “I should have taken more photos,” highlighting the themes of cultural preservation and nostalgia woven into a love letter to Puerto Rico.
Last year, when Ocasio was a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” he said the album title “means I should have appreciated more the moment, the present. I should have appreciated the people around me, the people who love … the blessing that we are here right now.”
The NFL announced Ocasio as a headliner back in September, in the midst of his own world tour where the Super Bowl would be his only stop in the United States. In an interview with i-D Magazine, his decision to not tour in the United States was due to his concern for his fans’ safety with President Trump’s ICE raids happening in the US. “ICE could be outside (my concert). And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
In January, Trump announced he wouldn’t attend the Super Bowl, saying the distance was the main reasoning. He later complained about the show on his social media app, Truth Social, saying the show was an “affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.”
Turning Point USA was also against Ocasio as a headliner, and counterprogrammed a halftime show headlined by Kid Rock. The show accumulated 6 million concurrent viewers, and was immensely overshadowed by Ocasio’s Super Bowl performance.
From the moment the Super Bowl halftime show began, the performer didn’t shy away from the politically charged realities of life in Puerto Rico and the island’s history.
The performance opened with people working a sugar cane field, referencing Puerto Rico’s history of wage slavery under Spanish rule. When the U.S. took control in 1898, slavery was outlawed, but U.S. corporations continued exploiting the land, buying up farmland that Puerto Ricans relied on to grow food, and paying severely low wages to working-class Puerto Ricans.
Ocasio entered walking through the field singing his 2022 hit “Tití Me Preguntó” He sported a full off-white suit with a matching jersey bearing the number 64 and his last name. The number 64 is a tribute to his uncle, Cutito Ocasio, who was born in 1964. His uncle was a loyal 49ers fan and was the one who introduced Ocasio to the NFL.
Ocasio then turns a corner at the same moment the beat drops, transporting the audience to New York City. There, multiple stands are seen representing local businesses, men playing cards, a nail salon, and a taco stand.
The singer then walks through a boxing match, featuring Puerto Rican boxer Xander Zayas and Mexican-American boxer Emiliano Vargas, referencing how deeply embedded boxing is in Latin culture and the longstanding boxing rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico.
The screen then flashes to a crowd dancing outside a pink and yellow house. It’s a full-on party, and numerous celebrities can be spotted dancing on the porch, including Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Ronald Acuña Jr., Karol G, Young Miko, and Alix Earle.
Later on, backup dancers crowd toward a white pickup truck, circling it as Ocasio sings “EoO”. The camera flashes to a line of people in black suits playing the beginning of “MONACO” on violins and violas, all conducted by six-time Grammy award-winning conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero.
The camera then centers Ocasio, who spoke directly to the audience in Spanish. “Good afternoon, California. My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and if I’m here today at Super Bowl 60, it’s because I never, ever stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You’re worth more than you think, trust me.”
The camera then flashes to a couple getting married, with a full wedding party celebrating behind them. It was later confirmed that the couple, who initially sent Ocasio an invite to their wedding, did get legally married during the Super Bowl halftime show.
The wedding crowd then dissipates to reveal surprise guest Lady Gaga, singing a Latin beat remix of “Die with a Smile.” She wears a light blue dress, red heels, and a custom red flor de maga brooch, the national flower of Puerto Rico. After the song is over, Lady Gaga and Ocasio share a dance before the singer continues dancing with the rest of the wedding party.
“All the references just hit me exactly as they should,” said Anna Fernanda, a Puerto Rican junior media psychology major. “My favorite moment was when they were doing the wedding.”
As the wedding sequence goes on, the newlyweds slice their cake. There is a humorous moment where Ocasio wakes up a kid who has fallen asleep on a chair during all the festivities.
“You see the child asleep on the two chairs. That was literally me,” Fernanda said, recalling their own experiences attending Puerto Rican weddings as a kid.
The wedded couple continues in the festivities, sharing their first dance on the Super Bowl stage. “Dance without fear. Love without fear,” Ocasio says to them in Spanish.
The singer is then taken to a bar where he is given a shot by Maria Antonia “Toñita” Cay, owner of Toñita’s Caribbean Social Club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a historically Puerto Rican neighborhood. Today, the area continues to be heavily gentrified, making the bar one of the last Puerto Rican establishments in the area.
Ocasio finishes the song as the scene changes to a little boy and his parents watching his 2026 Grammy speech on a TV. Ocasio then hands his Grammy trophy to the little boy, later confirmed to be playing Ocasio’s younger self. He told the boy, “Cree siempre en ti,” which translates to “Always believe in yourself.”
That’s when the show’s second surprise guest, iconic Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, took the stage singing “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii.” The song compares Puerto Rico’s treatment by the U.S. to Hawaii, warning of the gentrification of Puerto Rico.
The scene cuts to an array of powerlines that spark out, representing Puerto Rico’s continuous struggle with power outages, a direct consequence of colonization that created an outdated and weakened energy distribution system within the region.
Ocasio emerges from the grass under the power lines, holding the original light blue and red Puerto Rican flag. It is a clear statement of resistance, as that flag was banned by U.S. appointed governor Jesús T. Piñero under the 1948 “Gag Law,” which made it a felony to own a flag or sing songs related to Puerto Rican Independence. The ban was lifted in 1957, but at the loss of the signature baby blue that had been replaced by the navy blue to match the United States’ flag.
One of the only times Ocasio speaks in English is when he says “God Bless America” as the flags of all American nations are paraded across the field. He went on to list those nations as the words “the only thing more powerful than hate is love” glowed on the big screen above, a callback to his Grammy speech a week prior, where he called out ICE raids.
As Ocasio marched across the field, he held a football with the words “Together We Are America” written across the spine. Ocasio’s final words were “Seguimos aqui,” meaning “we are here.” He slammed the football down onto the field before going to celebrate with the rest of the crowd, singing “DtMF” as his final song.
“He wasn’t the first Latino headliner, but in this specific moment in time, it means a lot,” says Fernanda. “It’s just something that means a lot to Latinos in general but specifically Puerto Ricans.”
