From Album of the Year to Halftime Performer.
Bad Bunny turned Levi’s Stadium into a Puerto Rican street during his 2026 Super Bowl halftime performance Sunday night. He opened with “Tití Me Preguntó” and brought out a host of stars, including Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, to perform one of the most elaborate halftime sets in history.
The Puerto Rican native wore a custom white Zara soccer jersey with Ocasio’s name and number 64 embroidered on it.
Bad Bunny’s real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, which explains the former, but this number is a little harder to decipher.
Fans speculated that it might be an homage to his mother’s birth year. Some say the numbers also reflect the initially incorrectly reported death toll from 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which rocked the island and was actually the deadliest in U.S. history.
It is also the 64th U.S. Congress that passed the landmark Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917, granting legal citizenship to Puerto Ricans.
However, it seems most likely that Benito is referring to his own indelible mark on musical history.
In 2023, his album “Un Verano Sin Ti” became the first Spanish-language album to be nominated for Album of the Year at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.
And at last week’s 2026 Grammy Awards, she won three awards in the same category, including Album of the Year for her first Spanish-language album, “Debi Tilal Mas Fotos.”
The fashion darling also made history in Schiaparelli’s first red carpet menswear design, a corseted tuxedo with lace down the back, and a step-and-repeat.
The rapper used his two televised acceptance speeches to make political statements and speak out against ICE. “Before I say thank God, I’m going to say please stop ICE,” he said. “We are not savages, we are not animals, we are not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
He then appeared to present the actual Grammy Award to a child who was watching a clip of the acceptance speech on a small television during the halftime show.
Although Donald Trump told the Post he would miss a major game in protest and the conservative political action group Turning Point USA announced it would have its own competing halftime show headlined by Kid Rock, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell backed Bunney.
“He understood the position he was in,” Goodell said of Bad Bunny’s Grammy speech before pivoting. “This platform is used to bring people together and bring people together, and I think artists in the past have done that as well. I think Bad Bunny understands that.”
Meanwhile, the king of Latin trap, who previously made a cameo appearance in Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s 2020 Super Bowl halftime show wearing a bejeweled silver outfit, appeared overcome with emotion during the big pre-game press conference, crying as he talked about his mother.
He also teased that the performance would be raucous.
“I just want to have fun. It’s going to be a big party…I don’t want to spoil it, but people only need to worry about dancing. They don’t even have to learn Spanish. It’s better to dance, but there’s nothing like dancing that comes from the heart,” he said.
Bad Bunny announced that he would be headlining the show in September 2025, telling Page Six in a statement, “What I feel is bigger than myself. It’s for the people who came before me and ran for countless yards so I could go out there and score a touchdown…This is for my people, my culture, and our history.”
