I don’t know about you, but I LOVED the Super Bowl Halftime Show that Bad Bunny performed over the weekend. It was by far the best thing about the broadcast (especially since most of the commercials were meh at best, in my view). The decision to book a Puerto Rican artist who performs 99% en español drew furious responses, including from Pres. Donald Trump and conservative talkers. Megyn Kelly, for example, huffed about it to Piers Morgan — brace yourself.
“Who gives a damn that we have… 40 million Spanish speakers in the United States? We have 310 million who don’t speak a lick of Spanish!” Kelly fumed. “We don’t need a Black national anthem, we don’t need a Spanish-speaking, non-English-performing performer, and we don’t need an ICE or America hater featured as our primetime entertainment.”
Kelly had many axes to grind, including apparently about the performance of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before the Super Bowl to commemorate Black History Month. (Wonder if she wants February back, too?)
The reality is, Bad Bunny’s performance was not only phenomenal — it was inevitable.
Check out my video for a 90-second primer on how the Super Bowl halftime show became the eye-popping spectacle it has. The league got screwed once for taking the culture for granted… and they learned their lesson.
By the way, Megyn Kelly’s numbers are off (I know, you’re as shocked as I am). Recent Census figures show that more than one out of eight Americans speak Spanish at home: almost 45 million nationwide. However, nearly 59% of them say they speak English only or speak it very well. About 247.7 million Americans say they only speak English at home: about 77% of the population.
