SANTA CLARA, Calif. —Bad Bunny transformed the Super Bowl halftime show at Super Bowl LX into a celebratory Puerto Rican love letter, bringing Lady Gaga out for a surprise cameo at Levi’s Stadium Sunday night. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican superstar, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, leaned on reggaeton’s pulse and salsa’s swing to spotlight island life and a message about belonging. The performance capped the NFL’s biggest night, Feb. 8, 2026.
Super Bowl halftime turns into a Puerto Rican love letter
The set opened like a street-level postcard from the island: cane-field imagery, neighborhood scenes and quick-cut snapshots of daily life that kept the show grounded even as the choreography scaled up. A second stage built around a small house — “La Casita” — became the visual anchor, turning the Super Bowl halftime stage into something that looked lived-in, not just lit up.
From there, the pacing leaned into contrast: party records to shake the stands, then quieter flourishes that nudged the spotlight back to family and identity. The crowd-facing energy was unmistakable, but so was the intent to make the cultural references legible to casual viewers without sanding off the edges that make the music distinct.
Celebrity sightings added extra buzz without taking over the frame. Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Cardi B and Karol G were among the familiar faces shown dancing and reacting as the performance rolled through club-ready peaks, turning the Super Bowl halftime cameras into a roaming VIP box.
Lady Gaga’s cameo shifts the Super Bowl halftime mood
The biggest curveball came midway through the Super Bowl halftime set when Gaga stepped out for a salsa-styled version of “Die With a Smile,” her duet with Bruno Mars, then danced alongside Bad Bunny as the band pushed the tempo. People reported the appearance landed as a surprise, with Gaga joining without Mars.
Stagecraft with a punch line: A theatrical “La Casita” moment that escalated into a reset on a different stage, keeping the show moving and the broadcast visually fresh.
A nod to reggaeton’s roots: A short medley that tipped its hat to genre touchstones — including snippets of Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” and Don Omar’s “Dale Don Dale” — before snapping back into Bad Bunny’s own catalog.
Guest energy at the right time: Ricky Martin’s entrance for “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAIi” helped push the show into its closing stretch.
For the complete Super Bowl halftime set list and a play-by-play of the transitions and cameos, CBS Sports’ live updates tracked the performance as it unfolded.
A longer story behind the Super Bowl halftime stage
The Apple Music branding around the Super Bowl halftime spectacle has been in place since the NFL’s sponsorship switch — a change the league announced in 2022 and that the Associated Press detailed in an ESPN report at the time — underscoring how the league now treats halftime as a standalone global music event.
Sunday’s pairing also fit a longer arc. Gaga’s own relationship with the Super Bowl halftime stage stretches back to her 2017 headlining slot, which was confirmed months in advance in a 2016 Reuters report. Bad Bunny, meanwhile, first appeared in the Super Bowl halftime orbit in 2020, when he joined Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s Latin-leaning production in Miami, as described in a Reuters recap from that year.
Early reaction cast this year’s show as both celebration and statement. Pitchfork framed the performance as a joyful homage to Puerto Rico, while Reuters reported the stadium screens flashed the line “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” as the set closed.
Even in a format built for spectacle, the Super Bowl halftime argument was simple: the biggest stage in American sports can make room for a Puerto Rican center of gravity — and for a crossover cameo that amplifies, rather than dilutes, the message.
