Bad Bunny will headline the halftime show at next year’s Super Bowl LX, organizers announced Sunday.
This will be the Puerto Rican musician’s second time at the Super Bowl following his appearance with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez during halftime of 2020’s game.
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself. It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown,” Bad Bunny — whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — said in a statement, noting that “this is for my people, my culture and our history.
“Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el halftime show del Super Bowl,” he added in Spanish, which translates to a request to tell your grandma that he’s playing the Super Bowl.
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Roc Nation, the sprawling entertainment company founded by Jay-Z, will again produce the event. The company partnered with the NFL in 2019 to consult on live music events and social justice initiatives, including producing and selecting performers for the Super Bowl halftime show.
“What Benito has done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring,” Jay-Z said in the statement. “We are honored to have him on the world’s biggest stage.”
While the big game is an anticipated event for football fans, the halftime spectacle is just as much of an eagerly awaited cultural affair, drawing considerable speculation annually about which star will take what’s widely regarded as music’s biggest stage.
Names that made the rounds this year included Adele and Taylor Swift, with the latter hitting overdrive earlier this month when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made an appearance on “Today” and said, “We would always love to have Taylor play. She is a special, special talent, and obviously she would be welcome at any time.” When asked if talks were in the works with the singer, who is engaged to Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, Goodell tried to sidestep the question before responding, “It’s a maybe.”
Bad Bunny’s headlining gig — announced during halftime of Sunday’s Packers-Cowboys match-up at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex. — follows Kendrick Lamar’s performance at this past February’s Super Bowl LIX. Ratings for the Compton-born MC’s halftime show, in which he famously dissed the Canadian rapper Drake and launched a TikTok craze over his flared Celine jeans and “Not Like Us” shuffle, were the highest of all time, according to Nielsen, which said the telecast drew more than 127.7 million viewers. It also earned him an Emmy for music direction, an award he shared with co-music director Tony Russell.
Super Bowl LX will take place Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., and will air on NBC.
