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Bad Bunny’s blockbuster Super Bowl halftime show has fallen short of the all-time record, coming fourth behind Kendrick Lamar, Michael Jackson and Usher.
The 15-minute bonanza at Levi’s Stadium averaged 128.2 million viewers between 8:15pm and 8:30pm, according to official data released by Nielsen on Tuesday.
The record, set by Kendrick Lamar last year, is 133.5m, while Michael Jackson grabbed the attention of 133.4m in 1993 and Usher 129.3m in 2024.
Bad Bunny can, though, celebrate the fact that his numbers far eclipsed Turning Point USA’s rival ‘All American’ show, which peaked at 6.1 million and sat around the 5m mark for much of the YouTube live stream.
The TPUSA show, headlined by Kid Rock with performances from the likes of Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, now has 21 million overall views on YouTube.
Bad Bunny, meanwhile, has 62m – but the real win came in the form of live TV viewing figures, and social media coverage in the days since.
Bad Bunny wowed 128 million viewers with his incredible Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday
He brought out Lady Gaga, but it fell short of Kendrick Lamar’s most-watched show of all-time
Incredibly, clips of the Puerto Rican singer have recorded a total consumption of four billion views in the first 24 hours – up 137% year-on-year – and the top three most-viewed NFL social posts in history are all clips from Bad Bunny’s show, led by his ‘Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate Is Love’ finale.
In total, the clips posted by the NFL’s social team have been viewed for over 115 years on social media platforms.
Turning Point USA, meanwhile, has been criticized in the wake of Kid Rock’s performance after many claimed he had lip-synced during ‘Bawitdaba’.
The man himself has since come out to deny those claims, hitting out at ‘libtards’ and the ‘fake news media’.
‘That song is chaos,’ he explained. ‘The first thing is, if I was ever going to lip sync – which I wouldn’t – that would be the last song I would ever do it to. We performed this song every night on tour since 1998… since the day it was released.
Kid Rock, meanwhile, hauled in around 6 million viewers for the MAGA alternative on YouTube
Turning Point USA dedicated its rival ‘All American’ show to late founder and CEO Charlie Kirk
‘Turning Point USA sent me a first cut [after] we taped it and my comment was, “the sync is off.” They were trying to line it up … It was very difficult for them, because somebody clearly wasn’t super familiar with the song. It could have been done had we had more time.’
The reaction to Bad Bunny, meanwhile, was wholly positive, with even Trump’s biggest fans celebrating a show of unity and inclusion.
Many had expected the rapper to denounce ICE, as he had done the week prior at the Grammys, but instead he opted to show off his Latin pride.
While his songs are all in Spanish, he did speak English during the show, shouting ‘God bless America’ while highlighting every country across the Americas, not just the United States.
Bad Bunny ended with a message that read: ‘The only thing more powerful than hate is love’
At the end of the set, a message flashed up on the screen at Levi’s Stadium, simply stating: ‘The only thing more powerful than hate is love.’
While most loved the show, President Donald Trump was still riled up by it, and he took to his TruthSocial account almost immediately to share his thoughts.
‘The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!’ he wrote. ‘It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.’
