The Super Bowl LX halftime show is shaping up to be about a whole lot more than music.
The NFL announced Sunday night that Latin music star Bad Bunny will be headlining the event at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on February 8, which immediately sparked backlash due to the singer’s stances on politics and social issues.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Britt Mayer, host of The Britt Mayer Show, and Will Witt, author of Do Not Comply, to discuss the selection and why it was not the right choice for the event.
The Controversial Pick
With rumors swirling that everyone from Taylor Swift to Adele could be tapped to entertain the more than one hundred million people who tune into the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny is being called a bad choice for the halftime show.
The Puerto Rico-born singer and rapper, who performs almost exclusively in Spanish, has been increasingly vocal about his political leanings in recent years – and that has not gone unnoticed by many on the right.
In the final weeks of the 2024 election, he endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris, and he has been critical of President Donald Trump since he took office. The music video for his song “NUEVAYoL,” which was released on the Fourth of July, features a Trump-like voice saying “This country is nothing without the immigrants” as a Puerto Rican flag hangs on the Statue of Liberty.
The three-time Grammy winner also made headlines this year when he decided not to tour in the United States due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “There was the issue of— like, fucking ICE could be outside [my concert],” he told i-D magazine. “And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
Needless to say, he reversed course in accepting the Super Bowl gig. “I’ve been thinking about it these days, and after discussing it with my team, I think I’ll do just one date in the United States,” he said Sunday, adding the performance is “for my people, my culture, and our history.”
And then there are the social issues. Bad Bunny has kissed a male backup dancer onstage, dressed in drag for his “Yo Perreo Sola” music video, posed in women’s dresses and heels for photo shoots and ad campaigns, and wore a skirt during a Tonight Show appearance in 2020 with a sweater that read “they killed Alexa, not a man with a skirt” in reference to a transgender woman killed in Puerto Rico. That same year, he told the Los Angeles Times: “I don’t know if in 20 years I will like a man. One never knows in life.”
Bad Bunny, Bad Choice
Megyn wondered if the selection of an artist “who likes to dress in women’s dresses and who hates the United States so much he won’t come here because he is worried about ICE raids” was “an active middle finger to all of MAGA and the right-wing.”
Witt believes it goes beyond that. “I think it’s more than a middle finger just to MAGA and conservatives in this country. I think it’s a middle finger to what America is all about,” he said. “Like, can’t you put people on who actually represent true American values; who have songs that everyone can dance to? But instead it’s, like, TikTok slop and these people coming on with these songs that are vulgar and completely out there.”
“It in no way represents what, I think, the Super Bowl is supposed to represent, which is people coming together, enjoying a night where they can get with their family, their friends, and not have to be paraded around with this garbage,” Witt added.
But Mayer said it is not all that surprising when you consider who is behind the choice. The Super Bowl halftime show is a collaboration between the NFL, Apple Music, and Roc Nation. The latter, as Mayer explained, Jay-Z’s entertainment company. “As soon as I heard that, it… [made] sense. They’re just trying to shove woke ideology down America’s throat in the platform of the Super Bowl,” she noted. “It’s not because of who Bad Bunny is. It’s because they want us woke.”
That is why, Megyn said, the Super Bowl is no longer a family event. “I would take Roseanne [Barr] singing the National Anthem again over this guy,” she joked. “Every year, they put something in the Super Bowl that is inappropriate, whether it’s Janet Jackson’s boob, or JLo showing us her vag, or Shakira the same. I remember my little guy was six when that happened – six! Why is he seeing vag as he is trying to watch a football game with his family? We think it’s family entertainment, and now he’s got to see this nightmare in the women’s dress.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Mayer and Witt by tuning in to episode 1,160 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.