Bad Bunny walked away clean from a federal investigation into his Super Bowl halftime show. The FCC looked into Republican complaints about the Puerto Rican rapper’s performance and found zero violations.
Charles Gasparino from the New York Post broke the news. The Federal Communications Commission checked if Bad Bunny broke rules about “indecent material” on public airwaves during his February 8 performance.
The agency discovered something Republicans didn’t expect. Bad Bunny actually cleaned up his act for the big game.
“The agency is said to have shelved any additional scrutiny barring further evidence,” Gasparino wrote. Translation: case closed.
Republican Congressman Randy Fine from Florida started this whole mess. He posted on X that Bad Bunny’s performance was “disgusting” and “illegal.”
Fine quoted lyrics that Bad Bunny didn’t even perform at the Super Bowl.
Fine wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr demanding action.
“The woke garbage we witnessed on Super Bowl Sunday needs to be INVESTIGATED and put to an END,” Fine said. He claimed 130 million people and children got exposed to “vulgar and disgusting content.”
Mark Alford, a Republican from Missouri, jumped on Fox News to echo Fine’s complaints. Alford admitted he doesn’t speak Spanish but claimed “a lot of information” had “come out” about the lyrics.
Here’s the kicker: the FCC had to obtain translations of what Bad Bunny actually said. When they did, the evidence of rule violations looked “thin at best,” according to the investigation.
Bad Bunny performed during primetime hours when FCC rules are strictest.
The agency prohibits “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
But Bad Bunny sang in Spanish and kept it clean.
Republicans also complained about the dancing during Bad Bunny’s set. They called it “crude” and “dirty” with references to twerking. But the FCC found nothing actionable in the choreography either.
The FCC has now officially closed its investigation without taking any enforcement action against Bad Bunny, NBC, or the NFL.
