The NFL remains committed to its decision to have Bad Bunny perform during the Super Bowl LX halftime show, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday.
Goodell addressed the controversy surrounding the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican artist, some of which comes from President Donald Trump, at the annual Fall League Meeting on Wednesday. This was the first time Goodell discussed the choice of Bad Bunny, though the backlash is nothing new for him in this regard.
“It’s carefully thought through,” Goodell said of the decision-making process behind the artist selection for the halftime show. “I’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.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Bad Bunny, whose birth name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, has caught flak from Trump and his supporters given his public comments about the president and his administration. The 31-year-old, who has won three Grammys, recently expressed fears about U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is why he decided to do a residency in his native Puerto Rico to avoid stops in the United States.
KRISTI NOEM TORCHES NFL AS ‘WEAK,’ VOWS ICE WILL SHOW UP AT SUPER BOWL AMID BAD BUNNY SCANDAL
He said earlier last month he didn’t book any U.S. dates on his tour over fears that his fans would be detained by ICE agents.
“But there was the issue of — like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,” he told i-D.
Bad Bunny also recorded and posted video of what he described as local ICE raids to social media in Puerto Rico.
“Look, those motherf——s are in these cars, RAV-4s. They’re here in Pontezuela,” he said in Spanish, mentioning ICE working on the Avenida Pontezuela in Carolina, a city east of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan.
“Sons of b——, instead of leaving the people alone and working there,” he added.
Some NFL fans didn’t just have an issue with those comments, but also his hit songs all being sung in Spanish. But Goodell has no qualms with the show he’s expecting from Bad Bunny.
“We’re confident it’s going to be a great show,” Goodell said. “He understands the platform that he’s on, and I think it’s going to be exciting and a united moment.”
Despite Bad Bunny’s massive popularity around the globe, Trump told Newsmax that he had never heard of him before the Super Bowl announcement.
“I don’t know who he is,” Trump told the outlet. “I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s crazy. And then they blame it on some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
The decision makes sense to Goodell, though.
“He’s one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world,” he said. “That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us. It’s an important element to the entertainment value.”
Thus, Bad Bunny will prepare for his Super Bowl halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
