Halftime record eludes Bad Bunny, while Kid Rock admits taping his show

Contrary to much speculation earlier this week, Bad Bunny did not break a Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 ratings record with his live Super Bowl LX Halftime Show show, even though he created a cultural moment that defied President Donald Trump while delighting millions of fans in this country and around the world.

The Puerto Rican superstar’s 13-minute show averaged about 128.2 million viewers, making it the fourth most-watched halftime show behind Kendrick Lamar’s, which had 133.5 million viewers, ESPN reported. Michael Jackson’s 1993 show had 133.4 million viewers, while Usher brought in 129.3 million in 2024.

But 128 million viewers is still a lot of eyeballs, and Bad Bunny and his fans also can be proud of the fact that he pulled off his blockbuster show live — unlike Kid Rock, who tried to get out of being accused of lip-synching during his alternative, pro-MAGA halftime show by admitting Tuesday that it was was pre-taped.

Bad Bunny’s high-energy live show celebrated Puerto Rican culture and featured scores of dancers, multiple sets and powerhouse guest performances by Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. It irked Trump, who called it “absolutely terrible”  on Truth Social, and said it was “an affront to the Greatness of America.”  But it won raves from critics, with the Bay Area News Group’s music critic Jim Harrington writing that Bad Bunny delivered “a beautiful statement” of unity.

Bad Bunny’s “triumphant” performance, as Harrington said, also came one week after he made music history in other ways.

On Feb. 1, he became the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for a Spanish-language album. Album of the Year is considered to be the Grammys’ top trophy. That night the Latin pop artist also won for best música urbana album and riled up the president and his MAGA followers by declaring “ICE out” while accepting this award, referring to the deadly deployment of Border Patrol agents to Minneapolis and other U.S. cities.

Meanwhile, the day after Kid Rock was accused of lip-synching during his much-ballyhooed, alternative “All-American Halftime Show,” the pro-Trump singer explained that the lip-synching didn’t happen because he actually pre-taped the show, the Daily Beast reported. 

The 55-year-old rap rocker posted a five-minute video Tuesday to address the “libtards” and “fake news media” who accused him of lip-syncing during his show, which aired simultaneously to Bad Bunny’s live stadium show.

Variety previously cited several sources to report that the 35-minute “All-American Halftime Show,” produced with the conservative organization Turning Point USA, was pre-taped in Atlanta before being streamed on TPUSA platforms.

During a Monday night appearance on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, Kid Rock admitted that there were synching issues with his show, the Daily Beast also reported. These issues led viewers to mock the 55-year-old singer for appearing to lip-synch his way through his opening number, “Bawitdaba,”

Kid Rock’s show, which also featured three other country artists, was supposed to offer an entertaining rival to Bad Bunny’s show, catering to MAGA supporters who didn’t want to watch a performance in Spanish that might also challenge their political beliefs.

But viewers of Kid Rock’s show noticed, among other things, that his vocals during “Bawitdaba” could still be heard, even as he didn’t have his mic anywhere near his mouth.

“Was Kid Rock doing a really bad job of lip syncing or is my audio out of sync?” one X user wrote, while another said, “Is this a pre-recorded event? Kid Rock is way off on the lip sync.”

In his video, Kid Rock admitted to pre-taping his performance as a way to deny he had been lip-synching, saying that it was “very difficult” for TPUSA, the show’s organizers, to line up on the audio and video on the tape.

“So they sent me a first cut, you know, we taped it, then they sent me a first cut, and my comment was, the sync is off,” Kid Rock said of TPUSA, the show’s organizer. “Could it have been done if we had more time?” he said. “I’m confident they could have got it right. I only got to see one edit. I didn’t think it was the end of the world.”

He also explained how his longtime DJ, Paradime, helped “fill in” some of the vocals during certain moments in “Bawitdaba.”

“That song takes so much energy,” said Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie. “You’ve seen me. People see me, I’m flipping mics. I’m jumping around like a like a rabid monkey on stage, still trying to at 55 years old.”

When Kid Rock closed out the show with the ballad, “Till You Can’t,” a cover of a country hit by Cody Johnson, he appeared to be fully on mic, Variety reported.

In addition to Kid Rock, the “All-American Halftime Show” featured performances by Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. Gilbert opened the show by playing a Jimi Hendrix-style electric guitar version of “Star Spangled Banner.” Wearing a “God Family Country” T-shirt, Gilbert then declared “this is real America” as he started with the song “Real American.”

Brice, meanwhile, paid tribute to the Charlie Kirk, the late conservative activist who founded Turning Point USA. Brice said Kirk “gave people microphones so they could say what’s on their mind,” before he started his song “Country Nowadays,” which details the difficulties of having “small-town views” in today’s America.

Just before the TPUSA show began streaming on its YouTube Channel, shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday, about 1.9 million viewers were waiting to watch it. That number climbed to more than 6.1 million during the live stream, according to The Athletic. But that’s still a fraction of the number of people who turned in to Bad Bunny’s show at the same time.

Overnight, TPUSA’s event got more than 18 million views on its YouTube channel. But the vast majority of these viewers began watching after Bad Bunny finished his blockbuster performance, as well as after the game itself ended at about 7:20 p.m., with the Seattle Seahawks defeating the New England Patriots 29-13.