Here’s why Super Bowl half-time headliner Bad Bunny proved he is an LGBTQ+ ally

Multi-Grammy award winning superstar Bad Bunny is a staunch LGBTQ+ ally and looks set to to make his Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show show as queer as possible.

The 31-year-old Puerto Rican rapper, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, continues to reach new stratospheric heights of success. In 2025 he was crowned Spotify’s most-streamed artist for the fourth year in a row and went on to win Album of the Year at the 2026 Grammys for Debí Tirar Más Fotos – the first time an album sung entirely in Spanish took home the gong.

The artist has long been an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and for visible Latin queerness, despite facing accusations of ‘queerbaiting’ from fans.

Over the years, Bad Bunny has not been shy about challenging the hyper masculine genre he had made a name for himself in, regularly sporting more feminine attire, including dressing up in drag for one of his music videos, wearing skirts, dresses and blouses on magazine covers and interviews, and kissing a man on stage during the MTV Video Music Awards.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said whilst he would describe himself as heterosexual he views sexuality as fluid.

“It does not define me,” he said. “At the end of the day, I don’t know if in 20 years I will like a man. One never knows in life. But at the moment I am heterosexual and I like women.”

On Sunday (8 February) the megastar will take to the stage at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California as the Super Bowl’s coveted halftime show headliner. 

Unsurprisingly, anti-LGBTQ+ righter wingers have called for a mass boycott of the major sporting event and have branded singer “satanic“.

The abuse also saw members of the Trump administration threaten to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the event – however the chief security officer of the National Football League (NFL) has since confirmed that there will be “no planned” ICE operations.

Despite the controversy and backlash to his halftime show, the artist has vowed to make the performance as queer as possible and will reportedly pay tribute to generations of queer activists, drag performers, and cultural icons.

Here are the times Bad Bunny was an LGBTQ+ ally

Calling attention to homophobia

Bad Bunny is not shy about calling out anti-LGBTQ+ hate.

Back in 2019, fellow Puerto Rican rap star Don Omar made a homophobic remark about singer Ozuna, who at the time was the victim of an extortion scam involving an explicit video filmed of him when he was a minor

In response to Omar’s post on X, then known as Twitter, Bad Bunny wrote: “Homophobia in this day and age? How embarrassing, man.” 

Calling attention to transphobia

Alongside calling out homophobic rhetoric, Bad Bunny has also raised awareness of the abuse trans people continue to face.

The following year, in February 2020, Bad Bunny appeared on the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and paid homage to Alexa Negrón Luciano, a homeless trans woman who was murdered in the city of Toa Baja in Puerto Rico.

During his performance of his song “Ignorantes”, the artist wore a t-shirt which read in Spanish “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt”. The statement was a reference to media reporting in the country which misgendered her following her death.

Gender fluid fashion

Bad Bunny’s fashion is iconic, with the star donning feminine skirts and dresses as well as incredible suits.

Unfortunately, not everyone is as appreciative of his gender-fluid style and he has spoken out about the abuse he has faced.

“I get an endless number of negative comments and sexist and homophobic ones, without being homosexual, for dressing like that,” he said during an interview with Vanity Fair.

“Maybe the queer person suffers more, but it is not like I put on a skirt and go out and they say ‘Look, how cool’. They’re going to attack me with all their force anyway.

“You don’t know the reasons why a person is wearing that,” he continued. “You weren’t in his mind when he decided to put on a skirt or a blouse. You don’t know what’s inside him, what’s in his heart.”

Explaining his own style choices, he added: “You do it because you want to and it makes you feel good and it makes you feel happy.”

Same-sex kisses

Despite saying he is attracted to women, Bad Bunny has no qualms about locking-lips with other men – normalising same-sex male intimacy within hyper-macho Latin rap culture.

At the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) ceremony in 2022, Bad Bunny casually shared a passionate kiss with one of his male back-up dancers during his performance of “Tití Me Preguntó”.

The moment saw him kiss a female dancer, before turning his head and kissing a male one.

Some fans pointed out the parallels the kiss had to the infamous Madonna-Britney Spears kiss at the 2003 VMAs. 

Bad Bunny also shared a kiss with a male co-star in the film Cassandro, a biopic about the life of the gay professional wrestler of the same name.

In the film, which released in 2023, the artist plays drug dealer Felipe who has a romantic connection with Saúl Armendáriz, the film’s protagonist played by Gael García Bernal.

“My first kiss for a movie and it was with a man,” he joked to Time about the smooch. “That’s the penalty I get for being with so many women during my life.”

He continued, explaining that he took the job seriously: “If you’re acting, you’re being someone you’re not.

“So when they asked me for that, I said, ‘Yes, I’m here for whatever you want.’ I think it was very cool; I didn’t feel uncomfortable.”

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