The Latin superstar Bad Bunny, who has won three Grammys while bringing Spanish-language music to the top of the charts, will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in February, the N.F.L. announced on Sunday.
The Super Bowl is consistently the most-watched television program of the year, with more than 130 million people viewing last season’s halftime show featuring the rapper Kendrick Lamar. The next Super Bowl will take place on Feb. 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., near San Francisco.
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.”
This will be the seventh Super Bowl halftime show produced by Roc Nation, the entertainment and sports company founded by the billionaire rapper Jay-Z. Its agreement with the N.F.L. came amid tensions over the league’s handling of protests by the quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who had begun kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence against people of color.
Bad Bunny has been vocal about social issues affecting Puerto Rico. In an interview this month with i-D magazine, he said he did not incorporate the mainland United States into his latest tour because he was fearful his fans would be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In an Instagram post last fall, Bad Bunny published an eight-minute video in Spanish in which he described his pride for the island. He captioned the post “garbage,” an allusion to when the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during a campaign rally for Donald J. Trump.
Weeks later, Bad Bunny endorsed Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
“What Benito has done and continues to do for Puerto Rico is truly inspiring,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “We are honored to have him on the world’s biggest stage.”
The next Super Bowl halftime show will be broadcast on NBC. The N.F.L. announced Bad Bunny’s selection on social media and during halftime of “Sunday Night Football” with a video of the artist sitting atop a yellow field goal crossbar on a beach at sunset. His song “Callaita” played in the background.
There had been weeks of rumors that the pop star Taylor Swift would be the headliner. Her 21-month Eras Tour, which ended in December, grossed a record $2 billion in ticket sales, and she announced her engagement to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in August after nearly two years of dating. She will release her 12th original studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Friday.
“We would always love to have Taylor play,” Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, said in a recent interview on the “Today” show, a comment that fed the speculation. “She is a special, special talent, and, obviously, she would be welcome at any time.”
The N.F.L. in 2019 partnered with Roc Nation, asking the company to produce the Super Bowl halftime shows. Since then, the halftime performances have predominantly featured hip-hop and R&B artists: Lamar, Usher, Rihanna and, in 2022, a medley including Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Eminem. Roc Nation and the N.F.L. featured Latin music for the partnership’s first Super Bowl halftime show in 2020, when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performed in Miami Gardens, Fla.
The streaming service Apple Music became the show’s title sponsor in 2022.
