Everyone’s Talking About the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Bad Bunny, but It’s Not the First Time the NFL’s Courted Controversy—Here’s the History Behind It
The details of Super Bowl matchups can blur over the years, especially for die-hard football fans whose team didn’t make the cut (a sincere apology to non–Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots fans this year). But there’s one part of the biggest game of the year that tends to stick in spectators’ collective memory long after the final whistle: the 12- to 15-minute halftime show.
Who could forget Rihanna revealing her pregnancy during her 2023 performance? Or The Weeknd’s elaborate, maze-like stage production two years earlier? Katy Perry’s 2015 beach-themed spectacle—complete with fireworks, palm trees and a now-infamous, meme-able backup dancer in a shark costume—still feels like it happened yesterday. And then there was one of the game’s most iconic shows ever: Prince, back in 2007, singing “Purple Rain” in an actual downpour in Miami.
Love or hate the chosen artists, their performances are almost always unforgettable—and usually attract more eyeballs than the big game itself. Last year’s match, Super Bowl LIX, averaged a mind-boggling 127.7 million viewers, but “Not Like Us” singer Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance, featuring SZA, drew an even more jaw-dropping 133.5 million viewers.
This year’s halftime show featuring Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny, who primarily sings in Spanish (and whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio), could obliterate those records. He’s the first Latin male artist to headline the show, and the buzz is fueled in part by a controversy that’s been brewing on stage right—specifically, in Washington, D.C., with President Donald Trump criticizing the NFL’s choice. Bad Bunny has also been an outspoken critic of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which the Department of Homeland Security has said will be stationed at the Super Bowl. During his acceptance speech at the 2026 Grammy Awards, Bad Bunny said, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say, ICE out. … We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
All of that off-the-field drama will play out at the Super Bowl LX halftime performance at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8. But it’s not the first time the Super Bowl halftime show and its artists have courted controversy. To set the stage, we scoured the web for articles and videos that trace the history of the Super Bowl halftime show and how it’s evolved, along with what might happen this year. Here’s what you need to know.
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The Super Bowl has featured a halftime show since its inception
The Super Bowl I halftime show, which took place on Jan. 15, 1967, was a far cry from the pop-star-studded extravaganzas of today. That inaugural intermission featured two university marching bands, men whizzing around in hydrogen-peroxide-powered jetpacks, and hundreds of pigeons and thousands of helium balloons being released into the sky. “The halftime performance has come a long way,” Hall of Fame quarterback turned NFL analyst Dan Marino has said. “Not a lot of people really watched it, but now, people love to watch the halftime show.”
Discovered on the Associated Press
The 1980s decided bigger was better
Before the “bigger is better” decade, the choir-style touring group Up with People headlined the Super Bowl halftime show in 1976. Made up of hundreds of college-aged singers and dancers, the ensemble marked a major and clear step toward larger-scale productions, albeit without the major pop stars.
Then, in the ’80s, the staging became more choreographed and ambitious, hinting at the crowd-pleasing entertainment-driven evolution to come. At Super Bowl XX in 1986, Up with People returned with a production called “Beat of the Future.” The show featured a massive 81,000-square-foot set. And the group’s message to football fans was earnest and idealistic: love, unity and harmony around the world. It was also expensive. ESPN reported that it was the first halftime show to cost the NFL $1 million to produce—a pittance by today’s standards but a record-breaking investment at the time.
Discovered on ESPN
Michael Jackson ushered in a new Super Bowl halftime era
The NFL, concerned viewers were tuning out at halftime to check out competing programming, began to focus on matching the Super Bowl’s energy with a mid-match act that would be impossible to ignore. Enter Michael Jackson. On Jan. 31, 1993, at Super Bowl XXVII, the King of Pop took the stage and stood statue-still for nearly 90 seconds, silently commanding the arena. He then launched into a high-octane medley of his hits “Jam,” “Billie Jean,” “Black or White” and “Heal the World.” Jackson raised the halftime rating higher than the actual game before it—and that changed the proverbial game.
Discovered on The New York Times
Since 2019, Jay-Z has helped decide who gets the halftime-show slot
In 2019, the NFL partnered with Jay-Z’s entertainment company, Roc Nation, to co-produce the live halftime show, and the musician-mogul reportedly holds significant influence on who gets the coveted gig. About this year’s selection, he said, “What Benito has done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring. We are honored to have him on the world’s biggest stage.”
Discovered on Variety and People
Super Bowl halftime controversies are nothing new, but they have ramped up in recent years
With the exception of the number of times Michael Jackson grabbed his crotch on stage, early “controversies” were more about bad ideas than full-fledged OMG moments. See: an Elvis impersonator and then an Indiana Jones impersonator who missed the mark, and a Disney-fied New Kids on the Block performance. And then came Nipplegate. Justin Timberlake tore away part of Janet Jackson’s costume in 2004 and exposed her breast for less than a second. Was it accidental? Was it planned? Who was at fault? It was discussed in the media (at length) and led to a much tamer approach to the halftime shows for nearly a decade.
But controversy has a way of coming back. In 2012, M.I.A. flashed her middle finger during Madonna’s halftime show, resulting in the NFL slapping her with a $16.6 million lawsuit. Other, more recent (and political) controversies included J.Lo’s overtly sexual (and scantily clad) performance in 2020, which also featured children in cages to protest immigration policies; Eminem taking a knee at the end of his performance in 2022 to stand in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and protest racial injustice; and Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 commentary on systemic racism in America.
Discovered on ESPN and Business Insider
The Bad Bunny controversy is taking things to a new level
This controversy has been brewing for a while. The singer, who is currently on his Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour, has refused to perform in the mainland U.S. amid the ongoing immigration crackdown. “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate—I’ve performed there many times,” Bad Bunny told i-D in September. “I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.” But, he added, “there was the issue” that ICE agents “could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
Discovered on i-D
The government had some thoughts
Shortly after Bad Bunny was announced as this year’s halftime performer, Corey Lewandowski, chief adviser to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, said that ICE could be present at the game. “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl, and nowhere else,” he said on a podcast. “We will find you. We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you.”
The NFL’s chief security officer, Cathy L. Lanier, however, clarified at a Feb. 3 news conference that there “are no planned ICE or immigration enforcement operations that are scheduled around the Super Bowl or any of the Super Bowl–related events.”
Regardless of the speculation, President Trump won’t be tuning in, telling the New York Post just last month that he’s skipping the game. “I’m anti-them,” he said. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
Discovered on The Washington Post and The New York Post
The NFL defended its choice to have Bad Bunny sing at the Super Bowl
The day after Bad Bunny spoke out against ICE at the Grammys, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expressed confidence that the artist would “have a great performance” at the halftime show. “Bad Bunny, and I think that was demonstrated last night, is one of the great artists in the world,” Goodell said. “That’s one of the reasons we chose him. But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents and to be able to use this moment to do that.”
Discovered on X
Green Day might create some controversy of their own during the opening ceremony
The halftime show isn’t the only Super Bowl show set to make mega (and MAGA) waves on Feb. 8. Anti-establishment group Green Day will perform ahead of the game at Levi’s Stadium. Their music will welcome generations of Super Bowl MVPs onto the field ahead of kickoff. But some see the choice as intentionally provocative and controversial. Like Bad Bunny, Green Day has a long history of using their platform for political expression. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has not been shy about openly criticizing conservative leadership—and Trump—over the years.
Discovered on Rolling Stone and AOL
No matter what, the halftime show is sure to be a cinematic masterpiece
Regardless of the controversy, audiences will be treated to a pretty impressive show. In recent years, cinematic-style cameras capturing the action have made watching the halftime extravaganza from the couch a much more movie-like experience. And the camera crews don’t just show up the day of the game and wing it. They spend three full days on the field rehearsing and perfecting their angles, working out any kinks so the live broadcast (hopefully) goes off without a hitch.
Discovered on The Athletic
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