{"id":234114,"date":"2025-10-23T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234114\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T10:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:01:07","slug":"nfl-rejects-trump-complaints-over-bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/234114\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL rejects Trump complaints over Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL<\/a> is not considering dropping Bad Bunny<\/a> from its Super Bowl<\/a> half-time show following criticism from US president Donald Trump<\/a>, according to commissioner Roger Goodell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Grammy-winning Puerto Rican artist has been critical of Trump and the mass deportation of Latinos from US cities – referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as \u201csons of b****es\u201d – and recently staged a 31-day residency in Puerto Rico rather than performing in the US mainland.<\/p>\n

Trump has said he does not know who Bad Bunny is and called the NFL\u2019s decision to make him the headline act of the Super Bowl half-time show \u201ccrazy\u201d and \u201cridiculous\u201d<\/a>. Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, performs in Spanish and is expected to do so at the Super Bowl. The 31-year-old was the third-most popular artist on Spotify last year and his streams have soared <\/a>since his half-time performance announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s carefully thought through,\u201d Goodell said at a press conference at the NFL\u2019s annual owners meeting, in his first comments addressing the backlash. \u201cI’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. It’s pretty hard to do when you have literally hundreds of millions of people that are watching.<\/p>\n

“We’re confident it’s going to be a great show. He understands the platform that he’s on, and I think it’s going to be exciting and a united moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world. That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us. It’s an important element to the entertainment value.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with Newsmax, Trump said he has \u201cnever heard of\u201d Bad Bunny and was critical of the NFL\u2019s decision. “I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s, like, crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then they blame it on some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”<\/p>\n

Rapper Kendrick Lamar performed at last season\u2019s Super Bowl half-time show in February, focusing his performance on his rivalry with Drake<\/a> amid a few more subtle political statements in front of Trump, who he had been critical of previously.<\/p>\n

Trump has attended numerous sporting events since the start of his second term as US President, including the Ryder Cup, the US Open and the Club World Cup. The San Francisco 49ers are hosting the Super Bowl on February 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.<\/p>\n

From news to politics, travel to sport, culture to climate \u2013 The Independent has a host of free newsletters to suit your interests. To find the stories you want to read, and more, in your inbox, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL is not considering dropping Bad Bunny from its Super Bowl half-time show following criticism from US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[23632,110554,49,48,1376,37723,514,24178,948,82,19501],"class_list":["post-234114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-bad-bunny","tag-benito-antonio-martinez-ocasio","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-nfl","tag-roger-goodell","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sports","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}