The Left gushed over Bad Bunny’s “historic” halftime performance at Super Bowl LX on Sunday.
USA Today swooned over the singer’s so-called “message of unity,” insisting that after “President Donald Trump, his administration, and other critics denounced and politicized the 31-year-old Puerto Rican artist’s highly anticipated Apple Music halftime show,” he “got the final word.”
According to the outlet, Bad Bunny “had nothing to prove. He let the music speak for itself.”
The performance, readers were told, “paid tribute to Latino heritage, gave a lesson in Puerto Rico history and spotlighted radical joy and unity.”
The author even translated some of his remarks to highlight his opening message about believing in oneself. She stopped well short, however, of translating the far more revolting lyrics that followed.
Sharing a clip from the show, White House reporter Simon Ateba asked, “Wasn’t Bad Bunny’s performance absolutely incredible — historic, high‑energy, and unforgettable?”
One reader replied, “NO It was pure trash. Disgusting.”
Below, NBA broadcaster Emily Austin wrote that Bad Bunny “could’ve made it political. He didn’t. He chose unity & love.” Actually, he chose degeneracy.
She claimed that most of the criticism she’s heard has been about his ethnicity. She is wrong.
The woman below wrote that she “can’t stop watching” the show.
“it f**king makes me cry but it also makes me feel like, ‘Mi gente latino.’ […] It was to me, a Latina, the best Super Bowl performance.”
The reality of Bad Bunny’s performance was far different.
The English translation of the lyrics, which can be viewed here, reveals a level of depravity that raises a serious question: what was the NFL thinking when it chose to showcase such a degenerate at their most watched event of the year?
The Daily Mail reported:
In his track, Safaera, Bad Bunny boast[ed] about explicit sexual acts, drug use and casual hookups, with repeated references to arousal and sex performed while intoxicated.One widely shared translation paraphrases a line suggesting that a woman’s partner is inadequate if he does not perform a specific sexual act.Other tracks of his, like Tití Me Preguntó, reference juggling multiple sexual partners and genital size.
The Daily Wire’s Megan Basham published the English translation on Monday morning on X, writing:
These are the most obscene lyrics ever to be performed at a Super Bowl half time. And you have professing Christians in the Kentucky senate and at America’s most recognized evangelical magazine saying Christians should have embraced and celebrated this to show love and to show that we are welcoming. Also, the kids would get a “kick” out of hearing this Spanish.
[Note: Following the criticism, one X user claimed he didn’t sing Safaera. Grok contradicts him here.]
One X user dispensed with the spin and stated the obvious: “The point is that your kids will be listening to this in unexpurgated form today.” Bingo.
What this episode ultimately exposed was not a “message of unity,” but a familiar pattern of selective translation and willful blindness. The legacy media applauded what they wanted to see, omitted what was inconvenient, and dismissed legitimate criticism as prejudice rather than engaging with the substance of the lyrics themselves.
The NFL, for its part, once again chose provocation over prudence, elevating an artist whose work required careful sanitization just to make it passable for broadcast television. Parents, meanwhile, are left to deal with the unedited reality their children will inevitably encounter. If this is what now qualifies as “historic” and “unifying,” it says far less about Bad Bunny than it does about the institutions that rushed to celebrate him.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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