Any self-respecting halftime Super Bowl show will be packed full of tiny details and hidden messages that fans can spend days picking through.
Bad Bunny’s offering at Super Bowl LX last night was no different, with the Puerto Rican superstar’s performance littered with a multitude of aspects sure to have become talking points today.
The choice of the 31-year-old to deliver this year’s halftime spectacle wasn’t one that was unanimously celebrated in the U.S., but no one can deny that he gave a full-blooded showing packed with energy and party vibes.
Many wondered what sort of form his show would take during a time when political tensions are running high in the U.S.. Bad Bunny himself openly talked about a need to replace hate with love when accepting a Grammy earlier this month, and last year canceled shows in the U.S. after fears ICE would perform raids at them.
The rapper and singer’s 15-minute set was packed with cultural and artistic references from Latin America, while the show itself became the first-ever Spanish language music set for a Super Bowl halftime show.
The likes of Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, and Lady Gaga made appearances, while Bad Bunny carried a football later shown to be bearing the message: “Together we are America.”
Yet it was perhaps a moment many will have missed that proved one of the most poignant of the entire night. In the first half of his performance, while moving through a field full of dancers, Bad Bunny bent down beside a young boy.
He gave said boy a Grammy, and there were plenty of people online who believed he was making a political statement.
One X user wrote: “The little boy, Bad Bunny, gave the Grammy to resemble Liam Ramos. Wouldn’t be surprised is it was intentional.”
Readers may already known that Liam Ramos is the five-year-old boy who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers with his father in January after arriving home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.
“Pretty sure Bad Bunny gave one of his Grammys to Liam Ramos, well done sir! What an AMAZING SHOW!!! Love over hate, always,” another X user added.
It would later transpire that the boy was not Liam – who was released from an ICE detention center on February 1 – but child actor Lincoln Fox.
Fox took to Instagram to reveal that he had been playing Bad Bunny’s younger self.
“I’ll remember this day forever! @badbunnypr – it was my truest honor,” the boy wrote.
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