31-year-old Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio made Super Bowl history on Sunday. Image: www.imago-images.de
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Bad Bunny touches the world with his Super Bowl halftime show. Meanwhile, his most powerful critic exposes himself.
February 10, 2026, 3:05 p.mFebruary 10, 2026, 3:05 p.m
“The only thing stronger than hate is love,” beamed out to the world from the big screen in the stadium on Sunday at the end of the Super Bowl halftime show. Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny had just made Super Bowl history and celebrated a huge Latin American celebration on the football field.
Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny broke all audience records at his already legendary halftime show: 135 million people watched Bad Bunny’s performance, more than ever before.
Two days after the Super Bowl, the internet is still abuzz. There are dozens of analyzes and supposed Easter eggs. Footage shows people cheering in Ecuador or Canada after Bad Bunny proclaimed “God Bless America” and then listed all the South and North American countries. A lovingly staged everyday scene in the show also went viral, in which a little boy lies on an improvised bed made of chairs while the adults celebrate a party next to him.
There was even a real wedding during the halftime show. Image: keystone
The show was peppered with socially critical and historical references, such as the backdrop of the sugar cane fields, which were reminiscent of colonialism and slavery. But there were no major political statements. The message that appeared on the screen at the end of the show while Bad Bunny’s hit “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” played took on even more weight: love beats hate.
And the truth of these words becomes apparent in the hours and days that follow.
Because the hatred followed promptly. Above all by US President Donald Trump. He let his anger out that same evening on his Truth Social platform. “Absolutely terrible,” Trump wrote. And: Nobody would have understood what Bad Bunny said.
And in fact, even some native speakers seemed to have trouble understanding what Bad Bunny was singing. Some expressed their mock irritation at this on social media. The reactions to Bad Bunny’s halftime show also show that you don’t have to speak Spanish to understand what it was about.
The entire show to watch:
Impregnated with the joy spread by Bad Bunny and the countless people who shared the stage with him, Trump’s post remained an empty torrent of words. Anyone who is outraged by these happy people celebrating American unity is exposing themselves. Bad Bunny has held up a mirror to hate – and revealed its ugly face.
He has managed to show a government that has declared people like him, like the little boy sleeping on the chairs, the old woman at the market stall, the young couple who are getting married, what cohesion means to be political enemies. “Finally another major event that gives hope,” commented a user on Instagram about the show. And he’s right.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasios has countered the never-ending flow of bad news, the poisonous, racist, misanthropic discourse that is gaining momentum not only in the USA: a homage to the good in the world. Despite everything, or precisely because of it. And that’s exactly what the world needed right now.