Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny has hit back at US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's threat to send federal immigration enforcement agents to next year's Super Bowl, joking during Saturday Night Live that everyone was happy about his planned half-time performance, 'even Fox News'.
Hosting the season premiere of SNL, the 31-year-old artist used his opening monologue to address the controversy. 'I'm doing the Super Bowl half-time show. I'm very happy and I think everyone is happy about it,' he said, prompting a montage of Fox News contributors clipped together to say, 'He should be the next president.'
Bad Bunny, a US citizen born and raised in Puerto Rico, also addressed the Latin American community in Spanish. 'More than being an accomplishment of mine, it's an accomplishment for everybody, demonstrating that our mark and our contribution to this country will never be able to be removed or erased by anybody,' he said. He then added in English: 'If you didn't understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.'
The announcement that Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl half-time show sparked conservative outrage, including from Noem. On a right-wing podcast, she said only Americans should attend the event and warned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents 'will be all over' it. She also claimed the NFL would 'not be able to sleep at night' over its choice of performer. Bad Bunny previously excluded the US from his world tour over fears of immigration raids.
Other sketches during the SNL season premiere included Colin Jost portraying Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary nominee, with a tirade against diversity in the military. James Austin Johnson also appeared as Donald Trump, joking that he was 'keeping an eye on SNL' to ensure the show did not say anything too mean about him.
