Bad Bunny scored a touchdown before either team did during Super Bowl LX on Sunday, marching down the field during his halftime show before spiking a football at the end zone.
His metaphoric touchdown culminated a 13-minute Latin-fueled performance and was an homage to the countless artists that came before him, said Harriet Cuddeford, the creative director behind the performance.
The Puerto Rican singer became the first Latin artist to take on music’s biggest stage alone, performing at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara just a week after his historic Grammy win for album of the year.
Bad Bunny wanted his performance to center on this “idea of honoring all the people that ran the yards before him that got him to where he is, and then the idea of paying that forward into future generations,” Cuddeford said. “That was really represented by the idea going from one end to the other.”
The creative team behind the show, led by Cuddeford and stage designer Julio Himede from Yellow Studio, had about two months to develop the show before rehearsals began in early January, a fast-paced and “fairly wild” process, Cuddeford said.
The actual show “was the best run we’d had of all the rehearsals,” Cuddeford said. “The universe just smiled down and was like, ‘Let’s go.’ I don’t even really have words for that. Just, how that feels in your body is crazy.”
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show featured more than 300 dancers, according to the creative team behind the performance.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl was not without criticism. Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, organized an opposing halftime show featuring Kid Rock.
President Trump, who previously said Bad Bunny’s performance would “sow hatred,” called the show “one of the worst, EVER!” in a post on his social media platform following the show.
Cuddeford and Himede said the creative team was so deeply immersed in bringing Bad Bunny’s “clear identity and vision” to life that they had no energy to spend on outside criticism.
“If everyone else is making all of this noise, cool, but like, we know what we’re doing,” Cuddeford said.
The making of Benito Bowl
Sunday’s halftime show took place just after 5 p.m. Pacific, when the sun was still shining in California. The daylight was a key challenge to the creative team, Cuddeford said.
The West Coast sunlight would disrupt the concert feel that most halftime shows have, Cuddeford said. It was already dark out when Kendrick Lamar took the stage for last year’s show in New Orleans.
So the team got creative.
Cuddeford had worked with Bad Bunny on his televised performances throughout 2025, including the Latin Grammys and “Saturday Night Live.” She knew Bad Bunny was a “showman,” she said, and leaned into his theatrical skills to build out a halftime show unlike any other — one that felt more like a movie than a concert.
“There’s so many things that you’re used to seeing at the Super Bowl, and certainly on the Super Bowl side, they’re very used to doing things a certain way,” Cuddeford said. “We were like, ‘Let’s just try and imagine the space differently. Let’s try and make something immersive. Let’s make a journey.’”
The team divided the stage into various smaller sections to accommodate the “vignettes” that Bad Bunny would walk through as he told the story of “real people in everyday life that are celebrating the Latin community,” Himede said.
The performance began with Bad Bunny walking through a sugar cane field, interacting with a beloved L.A. taco stand, a jeweler, a nail technician and a group of older men playing dominoes. The singer slowly made his way down the stage, stopping by La Casita, popularized during the singer’s recent world tour, and even witnessed a couple’s real wedding.
The “DTMF” singer had a vision for most of the show, and it was up to the creative team to bring it to life, Cuddeford and Himede said. The show’s special guests, Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, for instance, were chosen by the singer.
The Puerto Rican singer had wanted Martin to perform “Lo que le paso a Hawaii” at his Puerto Rico residency, but it didn’t pan out, Cuddeford said, so Bad Bunny made sure he could make the Super Bowl performance.
Toward the end of the performance, Bad Bunny handed one of his Grammy Awards to a young boy. That moment was the singer’s idea, and was planned way before he took home three Grammys last week, Cuddeford said.
The singer grew up watching his idols win awards on television, and eventually, those idols began handing him the awards. The now-viral moment was Bad Bunny’s attempt at inspiring a new generation of younger kids “to believe that they can do it” also, she said.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance was meant to feel more like a movie than a concert, according to the creative team. The Puerto Rican singer held the island’s flag as he sang “El Apagón” during the halftime show.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Bringing a vision to life
Bad Bunny’s halftime show performance featured more than 300 dancers, multiple moving stages and, most surprisingly, a real wedding.
The creative team decided early on that a wedding ceremony would perfectly encapsulate “love, joy, connection and family,” that spans across all communities — the exact tenets that the performance centered on, Cuddeford said.
Luckily for them, wedding invitations are the most common fan mail that Bad Bunny receives, she said. The reggaeton singer sifted through scores of invitations before landing on the lucky couple. Bad Bunny served as a witness to their nuptials.
Wedding ceremonies are “very Latin,” Himede said, a “time where I can see my hundreds of cousins and uncles that we have.” At the same time, the feelings evoked from a wedding are “something that everybody around the world relates to,” he said.
The on-stage ceremony was visually inspired by a plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that is known for weddings, which Himede visited during one of their many trips to the island in preparation for the show.
Near the end of his set, Bad Bunny proclaimed, “God bless America,” as he reached the end zone, before naming all the countries in North and South America as dancers waved their respective flags.
Bad Bunny then turned the football he had been holding toward the camera to reveal a message: “Together, we are America.”
“We have the same world. We’re all one. We’re all humans. Let us be the same,” Cuddeford said.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
