Michael Abrahams | Going psycho over Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican rapper, singer, record producer and professional wrestler. Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, he began his music career in 2013, performing reggaeton and Latin trap primarily. An immensely popular global superstar, he has phenomenally impressive credentials.

He holds the record for the most views on YouTube (over 45 billion) and has the most videos in the Billion Views Club. He is also the most-streamed artist on Spotify, garnering 19.8 billion streams last year, and his album Un Verano Sin Ti is the most-streamed album in Spotify history. He has won six Grammy Awards, the last three this year, including a historic Album of the Year win for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, the first non-English album to win the award.

However, since he was announced, in October 2025, as the headliner for the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl LX halftime show this year, some people, mainly conservatives, have been hopping mad. President Donald Trump said the decision was “absolutely ridiculous” and that he “never heard” of the 31-year-old Puerto Rican musician. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would be “all over” the Super Bowl. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the NFL’s selection a “terrible decision” and expressed the desire to see an artist with a “broader audience” like 83-year-old country singer Lee Greenwood, who, interestingly, has 328,964 monthly Spotify listeners, compared with Bad Bunny’s 110,351,500.

Why the objection? Bad Bunny sings almost exclusively in Spanish, and many conservatives are uncomfortable with that, with some expressing the view that he is “un-American”, even though he is a born United States citizen, as Puerto Rico is a US territory. Bad Bunny has also been outspoken in his opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and excluded the U.S. from his current world tour out of fear of ICE raids possibly targeting fans. As such, he has been labelled by Trump supporters as a “Trump hater”.

To counteract the NFL halftime show, the conservative organisation Turning Point USA (TPUSA), founded by Charlie Kirk, announced that they would be simultaneously airing their “All-American Halftime Show”, which would be a celebration of “faith, family and freedom”. The artist chosen to headline the show was Kid Rock, who has songs with lyrics like “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage, see some say that’s statutory, but I say that’s mandatory” (Cool, Daddy Cool), and “I’m scopin’ for a big butt slut, one that I can take straight back to my house, and have suck my d*ck and put my b*lls in her mouth ( B*lls In Your Mouth).

The show did go on. Bad Bunny’s 13-minute halftime performance averaged 128.2 million viewers, the fourth most-watched halftime show in history. Total social media consumption of the show set a record of four billion views after the first 24 hours, contrasting with the TPUSA halftime show, which peaked at six million viewers on YouTube. His set, which included a real wedding, featured guests Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga and was vibrant, energetic and filled with symbolism. From depictions of sugar cane plantations from Puerto Rico’s colonial past to light poles highlighting persisting problems with the country’s electrical power grid, the performance was both a synopsis of Puerto Rican history and life and a celebration of the country’s culture. Ocasio is no psycho bunny or silly rabbit. Every segment of his set was carefully thought out and deliberate, communicating important messages while simultaneously entertaining the global audience that viewed it.

Trump commented that the performance would “sow hatred”. On the contrary, there was an overarching theme of unity. The performance was almost totally in Spanish. However, near the end of his set, Bad Bunny said “God bless America” in English, clutching a football imprinted with the words “TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA” close to his chest, while listing countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, with people waving the flags of these countries marching behind him. During the festivities, huge screens at each end of the stadium displayed the words “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE”.

The show was praised by music critics, with Rolling Stone describing his set as a “love letter to Puerto Rico” and Billboard hailing his performance as “brilliant” and “career-defining”. The right-wing, on the other hand, wished Bad Bunny had remained in his burrow in Puerto Rico. For starters, President Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that the performance was “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” and that “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying” (Although the total number of Spanish speakers in the US is estimated at roughly 59 million and the US also has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico). Conservative journalist Megyn Kelly told media personality Piers Morgan, “To get up there and perform the whole show in Spanish is a middle finger to the rest of America”, while Jesse Watters of Fox News said, “Latin America is invading this country” and that the show was “an open borders moment”.

Conservative lawmakers have gone even further. The day after the game, Republican Reps. Randy Fine (Florida) and Andy Ogles (Tennessee) described the performance as “illegal”, with Ogles condemning the show as “pure smut” and filled with “indecent acts” and requesting a formal congressional inquiry into the NFL and NBC (the network that broadcast the event), declaring that “American culture will not be mocked or corrupted without consequence”. The following day, Republican Rep. Mark Alford (Missouri) said House Republicans are already “investigating” the show.

Bad Bunny’s performance has laid bare the desire of a segment of the American population to redefine what it means to be American. For them, it is insufficient to be born and raised in America or its territories and be a US citizen. Ethnicity, language, sexuality, political affiliation, religious beliefs and other factors are now being used to define “American”.

But why the redefinition?

Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, social commentator, and human-rights advocate. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or follow him on X , formerly Twitter, @mikeyabrahams