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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, despite significant criticism from plenty in Washington, is all for Bad Bunny’s halftime show this week at Super Bowl LX.
Goodell was asked directly about Bad Bunny on Monday in San Francisco when he met with reporters ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium, and said plainly that he believes the Puerto Rican superstar will be able to “unite people” in the way that Super Bowl halftime performers of the past have.
“Listen, Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night [at the Grammys], one of the great artists in the world. That’s one of the reasons we chose him,” Goodell said.
“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 talent, and to be able to use this moment to do that. I think artists in the past have done that, I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance.”
Bad Bunny was the top global artist on Spotify for the fourth time in his career last year, and he won two Grammy awards on Sunday night, including Album of the Year, for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
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What about Bad Bunny criticism and ICE?
Quickly after Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime show, plenty in President Donald Trump’s administration criticized the decision. Trump said he had “never heard of him,” and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) called it a “terrible decision” in October. Johnson, however, then suggested that 83-year-old Lee Greenwood, famous for “God Bless the USA” do the show instead.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be “all over” the Super Bowl.
“They suck, and we’ll win,” Noem told right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson about her message to the NFL, via ESPN. “They won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”
Bad Bunny has been extremely outspoken about Trump and ICE. He mocked Trump in his “NEVAYoL” music video, where he had a Trump-like voice apologizing to immigrants, and he even declined to hold any concerts on his current world tour in the United States because “f***ing ICE could be outside [the concert].” He called out ICE after winning a Grammy award during an acceptance speech on Sunday night, too.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans … The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that’s more powerful than hate is love. So please, we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love.”
Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican, which makes him an American citizen.
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The Bay Area Host Committee told local officials on Monday that there are no planned ICE operations for Super Bowl LX, according to The Athletic. Goodell was asked about that directly on Monday, but he sidestepped the ICE of it all. Security preparations, he said, are moving forward as normal.
“Security is obviously one of the things we focus on the most,” Goodell said. “It’s a tier one level event that involves unique assets at the federal level, the state level and the local level all working together. I see no change in that in the preparations for the Super Bowl … The federal government is a big part of that, including this administration and every other administration before that.”
