Kid Rock will have some heavy hitters with him when he takes to the livestream this Sunday (Feb. 8) as part of his attempt to counter-program the official Bad Bunny Super Bowl LX halftime show with Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show.” He’ll be joined by such fellow superstars as Gary Lee Grant, Gilby Brantlet, Dilly Barrett, Tandy Breitbart, Billy Gidly and Baby Biblo.
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Okay, those other acts are part of a fake lineup read during Tuesday night’s (Feb. 3) cold open to The Late Show, in which host Stephen Colbert had some fun with the MAGA-friendly rocker’s spot atop the alternative to the NFL-sanctioned halftime show, a slot that is traditionally one of the most-watched 15 minutes of the year.
Colbert was one of several late night talkers who dunked on the less-than-platinum, “powerhouse” lineup for the Rock-topped show, which he joked would be headlined by a “terrible bunny,” while describing the aggro, all-caps font on the show’s poster as “T-shirt on a quiet, angry dad at Disney World.”
Like a lot of people, Colbert wondered who would show up to the Rock show, as it is still “unclear what venue will host,” noting that it seems to be a non-ticketed event that will be streamed on such MAGA-friendly outlets DW+, Real America’s Voice, TBN, CHARGE!, The National News Desk, Rumble and TPUSA’s YouTube and X channels. He added a few fictional outlets that could stream the show if they existed, including “Crunch, Kramble, Hunkle, Crampus,” and, in a dig at this soon- to-be ex employer, Paramount+.
“The right-wing media has had their panties in a bunch over the Bad Bunny booking for months because Mr. Bunny excluded the continental U.S. from his most recent tour out of fear that ICE could potentially raid the venues,” Colbert said of the American citizen singer’s attempt to shield his U.S. fans from potentially being targeted by Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration raids by doing a stay-put in Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory whose people are U.S. citizens. While the Department of Homeland Security is planning to have federal agents on hand for Sunday’s big game in Santa Clara, Calif., to “keep fans safe,” it has said it will not be conducting enforcement actions during the Super Bowl.
Over on The Daily Show, host Michael Kosta plowed a similarly fertile comedic furrow, joking about the Bunny show being for “radical woke communist who hate America,” before cueing up a montage of right-wing freak outs about the Bunny booking, most of which leaned into Benito’s alleged hatred of the U.S.A., which, again, is the country he is a citizen of.
“Yeah, there’s no way Americans are going to want to watch a performance by the most popular musician in America,” Kosta said, calling the lineup for the Rock-ternative a “who’s who of… who?” before doing his own variation on Colbert’s word soup quip about the rest of the lineup, which will actually be filled-out by country singers Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. “We’ve got Gabby Barrett, Brantley Gilbert, Garby Billet, Billy Garbett, Breely Grabbers, Bobby Glaberd, Goggy Bobbles, Barnacle Gaspardy, Babette Gingletree, Hologram Hulk Hogan,” Kosta joked.
Both hosts have a point if you break down the comparison simply by the numbers, with Benito smoking Rock in monthly Spotify listeners (85 million vs. 5 million), Instagram followers (50.7 million vs. 1.7 million), equivalent album sales (around 100 million vs. 27 million) and Grammy wins (six vs. zero). In addition, Bad Bunny has been named the most-streamed global artist on Spotify Wrapped a record four times (2020, 2021, 2022, 2025), while Rock has never topped that tally.
And while Rock has also never hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in his career — his peak was No. 23 back in 2008 for the ballad “All Summer Long” and his most recent hit was 2015’s No. 66-charting “First Kiss” — Benito was recently named Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 2025. He won that honor thanks to a dominant run that has included three No. 1 albums, more than one billion Spotify streams for the song “DtMF,” as well as his well-received acting role in the hit sequel Happy Gilmore 2 and a sold-out 30-show residency run in his native Puerto Rico last year, which sold an unprecedented 400,000 tickets in just four hours.
The Bad Bunny show has drawn a flood of criticism from the White House and conservative media, with Trump recently saying that he’s “anti-them,” in reference to Bunny and opening ceremony band Green Day, who have been frequent and vocal opponents of the president. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
Watch Colbert and the Late Show’s halftime bits below.
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