Puerto Rico stops for 13 minutes to applaud history and bask in Bad Bunny’s glow : NPR
Fans in San Juan, Puerto Rico watch Bad Bunny’s performance on television during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026.
Alexandro Granadillo/AP
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Alexandro Granadillo/AP
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Super Bowl lasted 13 minutes for many Puerto Ricans in San Juan and beyond.
People turned their backs on the television screens as food, music and chatter filled the first half of the match until silence fell over the island. The halftime show was starting.
It was perfect timing for Puerto Rico, a spotlight on a collective son who stopped shopping a decade ago and became the most streamed artist in the world on Spotify last year. Since then, Bad Bunny has used his platform to applaud immigrants, sing about Puerto Rican identity and unrest, and denounce U.S. immigration policies.
“He appeared at the right time in Latin American history,” said Marielys Rojas, 39, who is originally from Venezuela but has lived the past 22 years in Puerto Rico.
She was among hundreds of people gathered on a grassy knoll near a beach in Puerto Rico’s capital to watch the halftime show on a giant screen as waves crashed behind them and the sounds of the coquís, an endemic frog, filled the salty air.
Amablys Reyes, 55, arrived at the beachside watch party with her 22-year-old daughter.
She had never watched a Super Bowl and didn’t know who was playing, but that didn’t matter. Like many others, she was only there for Bad Bunny.
“It’s the biggest show of his life,” Reyes said.
Energy, nervousness and enthusiasm have been building in Puerto Rico since the NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation announced that Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio would headline the Super Bowl XL halftime show.
Watch parties were quickly organized on the American mainland and on the island. Some dubbed it “Super Bori Sunday,” an abbreviated nod to “Boricua,” which refers to a person of Puerto Rican ancestry, while others called it “The Benito Bowl: Morcilla, Sancocho, Mofongo, Reggaetón and a Little Bit of Football.”
One woman wrote on social media that she would watch the halftime show with her 87-year-old mother in Puerto Rico so they could dance together, while another person posted that she had prepared a PowerPoint presentation for her American friends called “Bad Bunny 101.”
Creativity abounded as February 8 approached: A bar in Puerto Rico released a promo featuring Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots quarterbacks sitting on the iconic white plastic lawn chairs that adorn the cover of Bad Bunny’s new album.
Even the Teletubbies got in on the enthusiasm, shaking their colorful rumps to Bad Bunny’s “Baile Inolvidable” a day before the show.
Wonder Woman also lent her support, with Lynda Carter noting on social media that she was a “huge fan” of Bad Bunny, who she said was an American citizen: “Make no mistake about it.”
But criticism of the NFL’s first all-Spanish halftime show increased as the first half ended.
Jake Paul, a YouTuber turned boxer who owns property in Puerto Rico and has posted about life on the island, wrote on
Puerto Ricans quickly responded.
“Don’t you live where he’s from?” one person wrote while many others pointed out that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
Luke Lavanway, a 35-year-old who lives in New York but was vacationing in Puerto Rico to escape the ongoing cold snap, said he had no problem with a halftime show in Spanish.
“It’s part of us,” he said. “That’s what makes us great, and we should just enjoy it.”
The crowd that had gathered for the halftime show began to trickle out as soon as the second half began, smiling as they reflected on what they had just witnessed.
“I thought it was phenomenal that Bad Bunny brought all the Latinos together in one place and represented them all equally,” said Carlos Ayala, 36, of San Juan. “This is an important moment for Latin American culture.”
He also thought it was fantastic that Ricky Martin sang Bad Bunny’s “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii,” which laments gentrification in Puerto Rico, a problem that is worsening for many on an island with a poverty rate of more than 40 percent.
“Conveying this message is extremely important in these times,” he said, adding that he also appreciated the lighting poles and exploding transformers featured during the show, a nod to Puerto Rico’s chronic blackouts “so the world can see what we’re experiencing.”
Among those beaming after the show was Juliana Santiago, 35, who said her heart swelled with pride Sunday night.
According to her, Bad Bunny proved that “you can accomplish things, that the American dream is really real.”
