In an October 2025 episode of Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Charlie Sheen said the NFL needs to “figure out the halftime show” and deliver “something that the diehard fans really want, as far as musically.”
Maher asked if that was a “backhanded slight to Bad Bunny.” Sheen didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I mean, there’s bands, there’s acts, there’s just people that I think are more germane to the experience of the game, of that moment, of that particular game. It’s the biggest game in the universe.”
Maher agreed. “I’m sure Mr. Bunny is wonderful,” he said. “I mean, it’s a reflection on me that I don’t know his work as well as I can, but I’m of a different era. I was hoping the halftime show would be Eddie Rabbit.”
The clip resurfaced on Super Bowl Sunday. By then, quite a lot had happened.
What Happened Since October
Bad Bunny’s album Debí Tirar Más Fotos won Album of the Year at the Latin Grammys in November — the first album to win that category at both the Latin Grammys and, later, the Grammys. Spotify named him the most-streamed artist on the planet for 2025, with 19.8 billion streams. It was his fourth time holding that title. No other artist has done it more than twice.
On February 1, he stood on the Grammy stage and became the first artist in the ceremony’s 68-year history to win Album of the Year for a Spanish-language record. He dedicated it to “all the people who had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams.” Earlier that night, accepting Best Música Urbana Album, he said: “ICE out. We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
Then later today, he will headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California — the first solo Latino artist and the first Spanish-language performer to do so, in front of an estimated 130 million viewers.
Charlie Sheen said this man wasn’t germane.
Bad Bunny posts a photo from Grammys night. Source: Bad Bunny (@badbunnypr) on Instagram.
Who Are the ‘Diehard Fans’?
Sheen’s argument rested on the idea that the halftime show should serve “diehard fans.” But the NFL’s own data suggests the diehard fans aren’t who Sheen thinks they are.
In 2024, NFL Senior Vice President Marissa Solis said the league has over 39 million Latino fans in the United States — one of its largest demographics — and that future growth is “mathematically impossible without Latinos.” The league’s “Por La Cultura” campaign, launched in 2021, was built specifically to cultivate that audience through Spanish-language broadcasts and cultural partnerships.
Bad Bunny’s most recent concert tours sold over 2.4 million tickets and grossed $435 million. His 2022 world tour set the record for the highest-grossing tour in a single calendar year. He has had four albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200 — all of them entirely in Spanish.
Roger Goodell defended the selection twice publicly, in October and again on February 2, calling Bad Bunny “one of the greatest artists in the world.” Jay-Z dismissed the opposition as astroturfing.
Eddie Rabbit died in 1998.
The Bigger Backdrop
Image credit: @badbunny.brasil/Instagram; @kidrock/Instagram
Sheen and Maher weren’t the only ones questioning the pick. Conservative commentator Benny Johnson called Bad Bunny a “massive Trump hater” and criticized that he performs primarily in Spanish. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson suggested Lee Greenwood as an alternative, saying Bad Bunny lacked “crossover appeal to the critical mass of Americans.” Turning Point USA announced Kid Rock as counter-programming. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced ICE agents would be present at the Super Bowl.
Bad Bunny addressed the noise during his Saturday Night Live appearance in October. “If you didn’t understand what I just said,” he told the audience after speaking in Spanish, “you have four months to learn.”
Two Guys, One Admission
What makes the clip land isn’t that Sheen and Maher dislike Bad Bunny. It’s that they both openly admit they don’t know his music — and then declare he doesn’t belong anyway.
Sheen is 60. Maher is 70. Between them, they have zero familiarity with the work of the most-streamed artist on Earth. And from that position, they concluded he isn’t “germane” to an event the NFL specifically designed to reach the audience Bad Bunny already owns.
Sheen spent his October questioning whether a 31-year-old from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, had earned the biggest stage in American entertainment. Bad Bunny spent his February proving he had.