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very year Bad Bunny gets bigger, with new records broken and more gains made — and yet his career in 2025 feels like a massively historic moment, even for him. The Puerto Rican star, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, kicked things off in January by releasing Debí Tirar Más Fotos. A deeply felt compendium filled with memories, love, and longing for his home island, it also traces political issues like displacement and gentrification. His masterful use of sonic traditions, blending Puerto Rican bomba and plena into pop creations, didn’t just help the album ricochet up the charts (it spent more than 20 weeks in the Billboard 200’s Top 10) — it drew a new blueprint for the future of Latin music.
It also set the scene for a groundbreaking concept: No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here”), Bad Bunny’s 31-date residency, designed to bring listeners to the heart of Puerto Rico. Each night, he filled the island’s largest indoor venue, the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, with almost 20,000 people. Celebrities ranging from Penélope Cruz to Mbappé to Darren Aronofsky packed La Casita, a replica of a traditional one-story house from the island that doubled as a VIP area and a b-stage. The entire residency made sure all eyes were on Puerto Rico, with constant headlines and intrigue built around surprise guests and performers. The first several weekends were open only to locals, and it wasn’t rare to see Puerto Ricans with tears in their eyes in the crowd. The residency gave the island’s economy a boost, to the tune of at least $400 million, and helped Bad Bunny stay true to what he cares about: his people.
“What’s the point of being at this level? What do I win? I’ll die and that’s it — I’m not going to take anything with me,” he told Rolling Stone in January. “So I think that’s it: to show the world who I am and what my culture is, where I grew up. To talk a little about myself so they can get to know me a little more, and that’s me: I’m Puerto Rican.”
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In September, yet another milestone was announced: He’ll headline the Super Bowl in 2026, marking the first halftime performance predominately in Spanish. The decision came with immediate backlash; conservatives lambasted the decision, melting down over Bad Bunny’s androgynous fashion choices, his defense of trans rights, and his past comments about Trump and immigration. (Earlier this year, he told i-D magazine that he’d avoided a U.S. tour so that his Latino fans wouldn’t be harassed by ICE.) Newsmax host Greg Kelly called for a boycott of the NFL, insisting that Bad Bunny “hates America, hates President Trump, hates ICE, hates the English language! He’s just a terrible person.” Even the president weighed in, insisting he has no idea who Bad Bunny is and calling the NFL’s choice “absolutely ridiculous.”
Yet Bad Bunny stood firm, lightly joking about the controversy while hosting SNL in October. His monologue included a winking clip of Fox hosts and talking heads spliced together to make it seem like they were saying, “Bad Bunny. Is. My favorite. Musician. And he should be the next. President.” Then the artist switched to Spanish and touted how excited his fans were about the Super Bowl, “especially all the Latinos and Latinas in the whole world, and here in the United States, all the people who have worked to open doors, more than I have achieved, who have achieved everything, demonstrating that our way, our carrying of this country, no one can ever remove nor erase.” Other than that, he’s been quiet on the topic, simply preparing for his historic set and treating the ugly rhetoric with class and aplomb.
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And just when it seemed like he was wrapping a victory lap of a year — which also included sizable roles in Happy Gilmore 2 and Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing — Bad Bunny scored more accolades, winning five Latin Grammys, including Album of the Year, in November. His acceptance speech was a subtle repudiation of anti-Latino rhetoric in the U.S. and a moment of empowerment for kids in the community, with Bad Bunny dedicating the award to “all the children and young people of Latin America, and especially of those in Puerto Rico.”
“Never stop dreaming and being yourselves. It doesn’t matter where you come from; don’t forget where you come from and don’t forget where you’re going,” he said, looking into the camera. “There are ways to show patriotism and defend our land — we chose music.”
