NEW YORK: Bad Bunny kicked off the 51st season of &ldquo;Saturday Night Live&rdquo; with a few timely jokes about his next high-profile gig: the Super Bowl. &ldquo;I think everybody is happy about it &mdash; even Fox News,&quot; the music superstar quipped in his monologue, referring to opposition in some quarters to his being named headliner of the Super Bowl halftime show. He segued into a few sentences in Spanish, expressing Latino pride and joy over the achievement, after which he noted: &quot;If you didn&rsquo;t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn!&rdquo; Bad Bunny will be making history by performing entirely in Spanish, a landmark moment for Latino culture. Launching a season that introduces some new faces in the cast, the show&#39;s cold open featured a sketch mocking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth&#39;s presentation to generals earlier this week. &ldquo;Weekend Update&rdquo; host Colin Jost played Hegseth, highlighting the defense secretary&#39;s remarks in which he said it&rsquo;s &ldquo;tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops&rdquo; and said it was unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals at the Pentagon. &ldquo;No fatties, no facial hair, no body hair,&quot; Jost&#39;s Hegseth said. &quot;Just hot, shredded hairless men who are definitely not gay. ... &ldquo;Because this is serious, we are facing the greatest threat to freedom and democracy the world has ever known. And we all know what that threat is.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/b9936ced-7b5b-46af-8277-434bcf05c970-This image released by NBC shows Mikey Day as Brendan Carr, left, and James Austin Johnson as President Donald Trump during the cold open on Saturday Night Live in New York on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP).jpg" alt="This image released by NBC shows Mikey Day as Brendan Carr, left, and James Austin Johnson as President Donald Trump during the cold open on Saturday Night Live in New York on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP)" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">This image released by NBC shows Mikey Day as Brendan Carr, left, and James Austin Johnson as President Donald Trump during the cold open on Saturday Night Live in New York on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP)</figcaption></figure> &ldquo;Late night TV!&quot; replied James Austin Johnson as President Donald Trump, bursting in. &ldquo;&lsquo;SNL&rsquo; 51 off to a rough start,&rdquo; Johnson&rsquo;s Trump added. &ldquo;Seventeen new cast members and they got the &lsquo;Update&rsquo; guy doing the open.&rdquo; After a fanfare-filled 50th season celebrating the past, &ldquo;Saturday Night Live&rdquo; is looking to the future with a cast that includes five new featured players. Several cast members have departed the show. Bad Bunny is having what can only be described as an enormous week: in addition to hosting &ldquo;SNL,&rdquo; he&#39;s coming off a historic residency in Puerto Rico, and on Sunday came the Super Bowl news. His moment in the spotlight hasn&#39;t come without some political discourse. The Puerto Rican artist has said one of the reasons his residency bypassed the continental U.S. was a concern that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials could target immigrants for deportation outside his shows. Asked Friday by a podcaster whether ICE officials would be conducting enforcement at the Super Bowl, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they would, because DHS &ldquo;is responsible for keeping it safe.&rdquo; She didn&#39;t specify whether the officials would be conducting immigration enforcement or other law enforcement duties that are typical at the event. The issue made for a key joke in the &ldquo;Weekend Update&rdquo; segment. &ldquo;A Trump adviser said ICE agents will attend the Super Bowl after Bad Bunny was announced as the halftime performer,&rdquo; noted co-host Michael Che, then quipping: &ldquo;You know, to catch all those farmworkers who can afford Super Bowl tickets.&rdquo; In his second &ldquo;SNL&rdquo; hosting gig, Bad Bunny was joined by musical guest Doja Cat, making her debut in that role. He was featured in many of the show&#39;s comedy segments, including a spinoff of the popular sketches in which George Washington attempts to educate soldiers about his new country&#39;s language and customs. Here, Bad Bunny played a Spanish ruler in 900 A.D. explaining how the language would have both masculine and feminine nouns &mdash; with Benicio Del Toro making a surprise appearance. Bad Bunny will be followed as hosts in subsequent weeks by Amy Poehler and Sabrina Carpenter. All three were highlights of the 50th season celebrations, with Bad Bunny performing at the &ldquo;SNL50: The Homecoming Concert &quot; and also serving as the final musical guest last season. SNL alumna Poehler, in her second solo hosting gig, will front the Oct. 11 episode alongside first-time musical guest Role Model. Her episode will air 50 years to the day of the very first episode of &ldquo;Saturday Night Live,&rdquo; on Oct. 11, 1975. Carpenter, who was a major attraction of the anniversary celebrations, is pulling double duty as host and musical guest on Oct. 18. The revamped cast comes on the heels of several high-profile departures, including Ego Nwodim and Devon Walker. Ben Marshall, already an &ldquo;SNL&rdquo; writer, becomes a featured player, along with newcomers Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska. Nwodim, Walker, Emil Wakim and Michael Longfellow all confirmed last month on their social media accounts that they are leaving the show. The show picked up 12 Emmys last month for its 50th season and anniversary programming, including an award for outstanding variety special. &ldquo;I won this award for the first time 50 years ago, in 1975,&rdquo; Michaels said, accepting the Emmy, adding that he didn&rsquo;t dream of doing the same show for the next 50 years.

This image released by NBC shows host Bad Bunny during his monologue on Saturday Night Live in New York on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP)

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Bad Bunny opened SNL's 51st season with jokes about the Super Bowl, celebrated Latino pride, and highlighted political issues while introducing new cast members.

Bad Bunny opens SNL’s new season with jabs at Super Bowl critics

Over the course of a 31-date residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Bad Bunny worked a miracle, inspiring patriotism in the hearts of a proud Boricua people, and in those traveling to Puerto Rico for the first time. He performed on two stages, one showcasing the island&#39;s natural beauty with its flamboyan and plantain trees, and another, a casita (&ldquo;little house&rdquo;), for the pari de marquesina, a house party. If all the world&#39;s a stage &mdash; might as well make it home. In February, it can be expected that the artist born Benito Antonio Mart&iacute;nez Ocasio will bring the same spirit to the 2026 Super Bowl. And he&#39;ll do so in Spanish &mdash; a landmark moment for Latino culture. From Puerto Rico to the Super Bowl Bad Bunny&#39;s &ldquo;No Me Quiero Ir De Aqu&iacute;&rdquo; residency (in English, &ldquo;I Don&rsquo;t Want to Leave Here&rdquo;) bypassed a traditional US tour, bringing approximately half a million people to the island during the slow summer tourism season and generating an estimated $733 million for Puerto Rico. Across three hours, attendees were guided through a musical history &mdash; reggaet&oacute;n hits from Bad Bunny&#39;s singular discography as well as the folkloric styles of his latest album, &ldquo;Deb&iacute; Tirar M&aacute;s Fotos.&rdquo; (&ldquo;I Should Have Taken More Photos.&quot;) There was a political history, too: like in the affecting song &ldquo;Lo Que Pas&oacute; a Hawaii,&rdquo; (&ldquo;What Happened to Hawaii&rdquo;), a rallying cry for Puerto Rico&#39;s autonomy. Or 2022&#39;s &ldquo;El Apag&oacute;n&rdquo; (&ldquo;The Blackout&rdquo;), in reference to Hurricane Maria, its aftermath and the continued anger and frustration over persistent, chronic power outages. Of course, a Super Bowl halftime show traditionally runs 12 to 15 minutes. It&#39;s not a lot of time to bring Puerto Rico, or its complicated colonial history, to the NFL&#39;s mainstream &mdash; but it is enough for a taste. It&#39;s worth mentioning Benito has done so before: making a surprise appearance at the Super Bowl in 2020, during Shakira and Jennifer Lopez&#39;s performance. He sang in Spanish alongside two artists whose bilingual hits helped usher in a crossover era for Latin music in the &lsquo;00s. He&rsquo;s a direct inheritor of their successes, and he&#39;s been able to kick the door down further &mdash; helping to establish an industry where Latino superstars need not record their music in English to have a career. Bad Bunny is simultaneously an interesting and an obvious choice for the NFL: One of the most popular artists on the planet who understands that going global means embracing the local, performing during the most-watched television program of the year. A pick with political considerations In a recent interview with i-D Magazine, Bad Bunny mentioned that one of the reasons his residency bypassed the continental US were concerns around the mass deportations of Latinos. &ldquo;There was the issue of &mdash; like, (expletive) ICE could be outside (my concert). And it&rsquo;s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,&rdquo; he told the publication, referencing US&nbsp;Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ( Hundreds of people have been detained in Puerto Rico since large-scale arrests began in late January, surprising many in the US&nbsp;territory that has long welcomed migrants.) It resonated with Latinos and the Spanish speaking community, who have grown increasingly weary amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment and raids, as President Donald Trump&rsquo;s immigration policies and executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation. Bad Bunny has long been critical of Trump and backed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. &ldquo;I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,&rdquo; he said in a video last year. For some Trump supporters, Bad Bunny&#39;s booking at the 2026 Super Bowl is a divisive political pick. Conservative commentator Benny Johnson described Bad Bunny as an &ldquo;anti-ICE activist&quot; on Instagram. Ryan Fournier, chair of Students for Trump, said that &ldquo;whoever picks these people should be fired.&rdquo; For others, Bad Bunny&#39;s booking is cause for celebration. &ldquo;Go get em Bad Bunny!&quot; wrote Bruno Mars on X. Roc Nation founder Jay-Z, who oversees the Super Bowl booking, said in a statement that what Bad Bunny has &ldquo;done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring. We are honored to have him on the world&rsquo;s biggest stage.&rdquo; At the very least, Bad Bunny, who performs in Spanish and will do so at the Super Bowl, is set to make history, further proving that connecting with a US and international audience does not require singing in English. The question is &mdash; what messages will Bad Bunny deliver in a culture where identity is politicized? And what does it mean that his performance arrives in the midst of one of the largest immigration crackdowns in US&nbsp;history, where Latinos are especially vulnerable? The Super Bowl halftime show after Kendrick Lamar In February, Kendrick Lamar&#39;s 2025 Super Bowl halftime performance made art of his short set, offering a meta commentary on race and America. &ldquo;The revolution &rsquo;bout to be televised,&rdquo; he announced early in the performance. It featured actor Samuel L. Jackson as Uncle Sam, whose character critiqued the rapper and his dancers dressed in red, white and blue for being &ldquo;too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,&rdquo; reminding them to &ldquo;play the game.&rdquo; There was the sense that Lamar was breaking the fourth wall, reminding viewers of the NFL&#39;s political associations following Colin Kaepernick&rsquo;s kneeling protests and the Black Lives Matter movement. That Lamar was able to weave American themes into his history-making performance as the first solo hip-hop artist to ever headline the coveted slot will no doubt benefit Bad Bunny. At the very least, he may learn from the rapper&#39;s layered and conceptual narratives, that messages on the NFL stage do not need to be explicit to be effective. A star-studded affair At every date of his residency, Bad Bunny invited celebrities &mdash; among them LeBron James, Pen&eacute;lope Cruz and Kylian Mbapp&eacute; &mdash; to join in his party. He also performed with many musicians, including Puerto Rico heavyweights Jowell y Randy, Arc&aacute;ngel and notably Marc Anthony. The pair duetted &ldquo;Preciosa&quot; &mdash; a song Anthony had not sung in public in 20 years. &ldquo;Preciosa&rdquo; was written by Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hern&aacute;ndez Mar&iacute;n in 1937 and is viewed as an unofficial anthem for the island. It references Puerto Rico&#39;s hybrid identity &mdash; a mix of Spanish, African and the indigenous Taino cultures &mdash; and threats made to the island in its long colonial history (&ldquo;No importa el tirano te trate con negra maldad,&rdquo; goes the chorus. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter that the tyrant treats you with black hatred.&rdquo;) It also arrived shortly after the 1937 Ponce massacre, in which a peaceful march organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party ended in a police shooting where 19 died and 200 were injured. It&#39;s common for Super Bowl halftime performances to bring surprise guests into their sets &mdash; and no doubt Bad Bunny will do the same &mdash; but who he chooses will wait to be seen. If he pulls from the book of Lamar, any collaboration may have veiled political weight &mdash; informed by his residency, but softened for the NFL crowd.

Bad Bunny performs during the final concert of his summer residency in his homeland at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico Jose Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. (AP)

Bad Bunny’s 31-show Puerto Rico residency highlighted the island’s culture, history, and politics, generating $733 million in revenue. He will bring this energy to the 2026 Super Bowl, performing in Spanish amid political tensions.

Bad Bunny brings Puerto Rico’s spirit to the Super Bowl stage

LOS ANGELES: The NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation announced Sunday that Bad Bunny will lead Super Bowl halftime festivities from Levi&#39;s Stadium on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California. The Puerto Rican superstar&#39;s selection comes amid another career-defining run: He&#39;s fresh off a historic Puerto Rico residency this month that drew more than half a million fans and is leading all nominees at the Latin Grammys in November. He has become one of the world&#39;s most streamed artists with albums such as &ldquo;Un Verano Sin Ti,&quot; an all-Spanish-language LP. &nbsp;&ldquo;What I&rsquo;m feeling goes beyond myself,&quot; Bad Bunny said in a statement. &quot;It&rsquo;s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown&hellip; this is for my people, my culture, and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.&rdquo; Roc Nation founder Jay-Z said in a statement that what Bad Bunny has &quot;done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring. We are honored to have him on the world&rsquo;s biggest stage.&rdquo; The 31-year-old artist born Benito Antonio Mart&iacute;nez Ocasio has won three Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys.&nbsp;He has become a global ambassador for Latin music, starred in films such as &ldquo;Bullet Train,&quot; &ldquo;Caught Stealing&rdquo; and &ldquo;Happy Gilmore 2,&rdquo; and collaborated with top fashion houses. Roc Nation and Emmy-winning producer Jesse Collins will serve as co-executive producers of the halftime show. Hamish Hamilton will serve as director. &ldquo;We know his dynamic performances, creative vision, and deep connection with fans will deliver the kind of unforgettable experience we&rsquo;ve come to expect from this iconic cultural moment,&quot; said Jon Barker, SVP of Global Event Production for the NFL. Last year, Kendrick Lamar shined with guest SZA in New Orleans, setting the record for the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show with 133.5 million viewers. His performance surpassed the audience for Michael Jackson&#39;s 1993 show. &ldquo;His music has not only broken records but has elevated Latin music to the center of pop-culture and we are thrilled to once again partner with the NFL and Roc Nation to deliver this historic performance to millions of fans worldwide,&rdquo; said Oliver Schusser, the vice president of Apple Music and Beats. &quot;We know this show will be unforgettable.&rdquo;

The NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation announced Sunday that Bad Bunny will lead Super Bowl halftime festivities from Levi's Stadium on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California.

Articles tagged with "Bad Bunny"

Bad Bunny opens SNL’s new season with jabs at Super Bowl critics

Bad Bunny brings Puerto Rico’s spirit to the Super Bowl stage

Latin superstar Bad Bunny will headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show