The Super Bowl is one of the last remaining parts of American culture that all Americans, regardless of their political beliefs, can share and enjoy, but the NFL and CBS’s Stephen Colbert seem eager to end that. On Tuesday, the host of The Late Show defended Bad Bunny’s decision not to perform in the mainland U.S. prior to the game because of ICE.
Colbert began by simply noting, “And the halftime show for this year's Super Bowl will be a friend of the show, or amigo Del Show Tarde, Bad Bunny, who sings almost exclusively in Spanish. And, not only that, is expected to perform in Spanish.”
Stephen Colbert thinks the Super Bowl (Go Hawks!) halftime performer not performing in the mainland U.S. before the game is great, "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… pic.twitter.com/kOPNZ0wSEZ
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 4, 2026
The idea that the Super Bowl halftime performer will speak in a language most viewers will not understand got a bizarrely long applause from the studio audience. Afterwards, Colbert mocked his own lack of Spanish knowledge before turning to conservative media, “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, and then on Sunday night, he blasted ICE while accepting an award at the Grammys. Hey, he's just looking out for his fans, y'all. Also—that's what you want to do.”
Colbert would go on to mock an anonymous NFL player who demanded an American performer, not realizing that Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican birth makes him an American citizen and plenty of previous Super Bowl halftime performers have not been American.
However, it is interesting that Colbert did not cite all the concerts that have taken place in the U.S. in recent months without massive ICE operations. Furthermore, if the last great cultural unifier wants to endanger that status by putting on a partisan hack who won’t even perform in English, people have a right to object.
Here is a transcript for the February 3 show:
CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2/3/2026
11:38 PM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: And the halftime show for this year's Super Bowl will be a friend of the show, or amigo Del Show Tarde, Bad Bunny, who sings almost exclusively in Spanish. And, not only that, is expected to perform in Spanish. Now, I've been practicing my Spanish on my Duolingo, so I'll understand all his lyrics, as long as the lyrics are, "The bear and the mouse need an apartment." El oso. That's all I got. 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, and then on Sunday night, he blasted ICE while accepting an award at the Grammys. Hey, he's just looking out for his fans, y'all. Also—that's what you want to do.
