Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LX was a celebration of love, America, and unity despite political pushback from the MAGA party. Bad Bunny’s performance topped the charts, telling the all-American story, surprising viewers with appearances by Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, and even holding a full-blown wedding.

The NFL having Bad Bunny as the headliner, however, created a divide between communities, with some right-leaning figures claiming he was not American, despite being from Puerto Rico, a long-time U.S. territory that grants its citizens U.S. citizenship. Complaints were hard to hear over the millions excited to hear an American-Latin artist and activist.

People from all over the world tuned in this Sunday for the halftime show at a whopping estimated 135-142.3 million record breaking views, according to AZCentral. With many guests making an appearance like Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Karol G, and many more dancing on a stage, including Lady Gaga, who sang a rendition of “Die With A Smile” that left people in awe. 

But many also found the hidden messages behind the entire performance. Bad Bunny climbed an electrical pole with sparks flying during his song “El Apagón – The Blackout” (2022), symbolizing the electrical blackouts of Puerto Rico. The country has been struggling with electrical infrastructure since Hurricane Maria in 2017, and the problems were only exacerbated when the U.S. contracted energy company LUMA to oversee power plants in the area.

After the Hurricane in 2017, it took roughly “11 months, for the island to restore power to all of the customers,” said ABC News. Despite being under U.S. ownership, the Federal Administration at the time did not prioritize restoring electricity. Now, over the past year, blackouts are still happening throughout the island nation.

Political criticism was only a beat of the show. In an effort to carry a theme of ‘Love’, a real wedding took place on stage. According to People Magazine, the happy couple sent a wedding invite to Bad Bunny, and in return he invited the engaged couple to attend the performance and get married on stage with “[Bad Bunny] serving as a witness and signing the marriage certificate.”

Ricky Martin also performed at the half time show, singing the ending to Bad Bunny’s song “LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAII” (“What Happened to Hawaii” in English). The meaning behind this song has many theories, including one from Genius: “Puerto Rico has gotten colonized with the natives pushed out onto the streets while colonizers thrive on their land.” 

Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio (hence ‘Benito Bowl’ cropping up as an alternative name for the Super Bowl), is Puerto Rican, his father was a truck driver and his mother a school teacher. He got his start by uploading music to SoundCloud and over time became the widely known artist we all know today as Bad Bunny. 

His journey from Puerto Rico to the Super Bowl is a definite success of Latin music, yet Bad Bunny making it to one of the biggest stages in U.S.A. culture caused a sizable divide.

This divide caused so much controversy that a different halftime show took place via YouTube live, called, “The All American Halftime Show” – sponsored and funded by Turning Point USA, a right-wing youth organization co-founded by Charlie Kirk. Kid Rock, headlined alongside other artists like Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett.

Kid Rock, whose name is known by many, had his own bit of controversy creep into the mix as some old lyrics resurfaced and had many disturbed: “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage/ See, some say that’s statutory/ But I say it’s mandatory,” y!Entertainment reported.

Photos are being shared all over social media from Bad Bunny’s exit into the walking bushes, but the two things that have been shared time and time again would come at the end of the concert.

Bad Bunny’s conclusion was powerful. He exclaimed, “God bless America,” and then proceed to list every country on the continents of North and South America (he said, “Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guiana, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, La Republica Dominicana, Jamaica, Antilles, United States, Canada, and my mother land, mi patria, Puerto Rico.”)

He ended his segment with the statement “Seguimos aqui” meaning “We are still here” while holding up a football with the words “Together, we are America.”

At the end of his performance, surrounded by people with many flags of the countries he named, on the jumbotron right behind him you can see in big bold letters “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”

A powerful statement that Bad Bunny also used when he received his grammy award, where in addition he said, “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens, we are humans, and we are Americans.” (This can all be seen in a video published on YouTube by NowThis Impact.)

Overall, the halftime show was not just for football fans, but to spread love, kindness, and unity to all.