The right is terrified of Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny, the “King of Latin Trap,” will perform the halftime show at the Super Bowl, promising a “huge party.” But his opposition to the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown has led MAGA politicos and media stars to spread rumors in an effort to stoke a backlash against the artist.

Let’s take a look at some of them: 

“He’s not an American artist,” said conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren on her show Tomi Lahren is Fearless last September.

Actually, Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican native and therefore he’s legally a US citizen. When Lahren was called out for missing this fact, she clarified that she believes he is un-American due to his remarks against ICE and due to his refusal to tour in the US. (The artist has cited his concerns over ICE agents gathering outside his concerts to target his fans.)

“He’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told the immigration newsletter Migrant Insider in an interview posted on February 3. “There’s so many eyes on the Super Bowl—a lot of young impressionable children. I think in my view you would have Lee Greenwood or role models doing that,” he said, referring to the American country music singer. (Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA” is Trump’s walkout song.)

Wake up, Mike. Bad Bunny is in fact immensely popular. He was the top artist on Spotify’s global charts from 2020-2022 and 2025. In 2025, he had about 19.8 billion streams on the platform. And he just made history to become the first artist to win the Grammy for Best Album for a record sung entirely in Spanish.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell backed Bad Bunny the day after his success at the Grammys, noting his popularity. “It’s one of the reasons we chose him,” Goodell said last Monday. “The other reason is he understood the platform he was on. This platform is used to unite people.” 

He continued: “I think artists in the past have done that. Bad Bunny understands that and I think he’ll have a great show.”

“All it does is sow hatred,” President Trump told the New York Post last month to explain that he planned to skip the Super Bowl due in large part to Bad Bunny’s appearance in the halftime show.

This “hatred” is Bad Bunny’s criticism of Trump and his administration’s violence against immigrants, communities of color, and protesters. And this criticism has often been far from hateful. During the artist’s Grammy acceptance speech, he said, “If we fight, we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them. We love our people. We love our family.” 

Criticism of ICE is popular—65 percent of Americans said the federal agency has “gone too far” in its brutal enforcement of immigration laws in polls conducted late last month.

And in fact, as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote last month, the push to “sow hatred” could better describe Trump’s campaign of terror to redefine who belongs in the US.

Last October, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said ICE agents would be at the Super Bowl. “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Corey Lewandowski, senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security and Trump’s first campaign manager in his 2016 presidential campaign, said that same week. “Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else.”

The NFL insisted on Tuesday that ICE officers would not be present at the game. “There are no planned ICE enforcement activities. We are confident of that,” Lanier, the league’s chief security officer said at a security briefing. As of Sunday early afternoon, there have been no reports of ICE presence at the stadium.

The right has put together an alternative Super Bowl performance featuring Kid Rock. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump would “much prefer to watch” Kid Rock over Bad Bunny. 

But this attempt to replace Bad Bunny with who they consider a more “American” artist is clearly not working. Kid Rock’s televised performance of “The All-American Halftime Show,” which is sponsored by the late Charlie Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, has lost multiple performers in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. The rock band Shinedown announced on Friday that it would drop out as taking part would “create further division.”