SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Bad Bunny says his highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime performance throbs with a mix of excitement, gratitude and perspective.
“To be honest, I don’t know how I feel. There’s a lot. I’m still in the middle of my tour. I was at the Grammys last week. All that,” he said in English on Thursday at a press conference organized by Apple Music. Bad Bunny appeared on stage with his 2017 single “Chambea” in the background.
“I’m excited, but at the same time, I feel more excited for the people than even for me, my family, my friends, the people who have always believed in me,” he said. “This moment, the culture, that’s what makes these shows special.”
Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican superstar whose given name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is one of the most listened to artists on the planet. He will take the Super Bowl stage just a week after winning album of the year at the 2026 Grammys for “I Should Have Shot More.” It is the first time that an album completely in Spanish takes the main prize.
During the conference, he joked that fans didn’t need to learn Spanish to enjoy his performance, but they should be prepared to dance, a reference to his monologue on “Saturday Night Live” last October.
Apple Music’s Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden hosted the conversation with Bad Bunny. Thursday’s event began with conversations with the pre-show artists at 1:00 pm ET.
This year, a long line formed long before the doors opened, with accredited media, including a notable presence of Spanish and Latin American media, filling the room almost an hour before the press conference began.
It marked a stark contrast to Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 press conference, when the room didn’t fill until about 15 minutes before the event.
What can fans expect from the Super Bowl halftime show?
Despite the growing interest, Bad Bunny offered few details about what viewers will see on Sunday.
“It’s going to be a great party,” he said. “What people can expect from me… I want to bring to the stage, of course, a lot of my culture. But I don’t really want to give any spoilers. It’s going to be fun.”
For the artist, the path to the Super Bowl was never driven by recognition or awards. He said that “I should have taken more photos” became his most significant project because it was based on reconnecting with his identity, history and culture, but not on chasing milestones.
“I wasn’t looking for album of the year. I wasn’t looking to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show,” he said. “I was just trying to connect with my roots, connect with my people, connect with myself.”
That mindset, he said, ultimately opened the door to something bigger: bringing a deeply personal expression of culture to one of the world’s biggest stages.
“You always have to be proud of who you are and where you come from,” he said. “But don’t let that limit where you can go.”
Bad Bunny is no stranger to the Super Bowl stage. He participated as a guest during the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in 2020 alongside Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. But he said his approach has remained unchanged.
“My greatest pleasure is simply creating, having fun doing it and connecting with people,” he said. “That’s what I always look for every time I’m in the studio.”
When asked if he will have surprise guests, he said: “That’s something I’m not going to tell you.”
He then commented that he will actually have many guests watching, his friends, family, “the Latin community” and people from all over the world who love his music.
At the end of the interview, Bad Bunny answered questions from some student journalists, including one who asked him to name an early supporter. “My mom,” the singer responded.
“First of all, she believed in me as a person, as a human being. She believed in me, in my decisions, in my opinions,” he continued. “I think that’s what brought me here, you know? Not because she thought I was a great artist, but because she thought I was a great person.”
The Super Bowl will take place on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, where the Seattle Seahawks will take on the New England Patriots.
Who else will perform at the Super Bowl?
The Super Bowl pre-show will kick off with several featured performers in Northern California: Charlie Puth will take the stage to sing the national anthem, Brandi Carlile will perform “America the Beautiful” and Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
“I want them to feel inspired. I want everyone to know that music is an amazing thing,” Puth said of his performance.
“This is pretty much the best of the best,” Jones added. “This is the best… It’s hard to compete. Maybe my wedding will be up to par.”
The national anthem and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be performed by deaf artist Fred Beam in American Sign Language. Julian Ortiz will perform “America the Beautiful.”
Before the game, Green Day will play a set to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Super Bowl. The band, which has its roots in the Bay Area, plans to “make noise!”, according to lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong.
For the first time in history, the halftime show will include multilingual sign language interpretation using Puerto Rican Sign Language, led by interpreter Celimar Rivera Cosme. She was also the performer at Bad Bunny’s historic residency in Puerto Rico last year, which attracted more than half a million fans.
All sign language performances for the pre-show and halftime shows will be presented in collaboration with Alexis Kashar of LOVE SIGN and Howard Rosenblum of Deaf Equality.
Associated Press writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report from New York.
