Roger Goodell stands firm on Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show after Trump calls selection 'ridiculous'

The NFL remains committed 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.

"It’s carefully thought through," Goodell said of the decision-making process 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."

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Bad Bunny, whose birth name is Benito Antonio Martínez 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.

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He said earlier last month he didn't book any U.S. dates on his tour over fears 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 had an issue not only with those comments, but with 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 he had never heard of Bad Bunny 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," the commissioner said. "That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us. It’s an important element to the entertainment value."

So, Bad Bunny will prepare for his Super Bowl halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, Feb. 8, 2026.

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