country singer Kacey Musgraves is taking sides in the duel Super Bowl LX halftime show battle.
“Well, that made me more proud to be an American than anything Kid Rock has ever done,” Musgraves, 37, wrote X on Sunday, February 8, after seeing Bad Bunnythe cameo-filled Apple Music performance.
Bad Bunny, 31, joined Lady Gaga i a board of Latin starsincluded Pedro Pascal, Cardi B, Karol G, Ricky Martin i Jessica Alba in his big game concert. At one point, Bad Bunny exclaimed, “May God bless America” before singing in Spanish.
“The only thing more powerful than hate is love” a billboard is displayed on the Levi’s Stadium jumbotron read at the end of the set.
At the same time, Rock, 55, headlined the All-American Halftime Show next to Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice i Gabby Barrett. The alternative concert was organized by Turning Point USA, the conservative political organization founded by the deceased Charlie Kirk.
Turning Point declared late last year that its show was meant to celebrate “faith, family and freedom.”
“We intend to play great songs for people who love America,” Rock said he said in a statement earlier this month. “We approach this show like David and Goliath. Competing with the machine of pro football and a global pop superstar is almost impossible…or isn’t it?”
He added, “(Bad Bunny) said he’s having a dance party, wearing a suit and singing in Spanish? Great. We intend to play great songs for the people who love America.” (Bad Bunny didn’t wear a suit Sunday, wearing a white pantsuit with a sweater-style “Ocasio 64” emblazoned across the back.)
Kid Rock in 2011.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images for VH1)Although Rock was excited to perform at the Turning Point show, many social media users questioned the appropriateness of his music, especially considering his 2001 hit “Cool, Daddy Cool” it’s about pleasing underage girls.
“I didn’t really change, like I went out with my middle fingers on my CDs, running my mouth,” Rock previously said on a 2024 episode of the “This Past Weekend” podcast, defending his music. “I always say, and it probably sounds redundant, but I haven’t changed; times have changed. I’ve been doing the same thing since day one.”
Musgraves, meanwhile, is not affiliated with any of the halftime shows, but has long been open about her political ideologies and her fervent alliance of the LGBTQIA+ community.
The 2026 Super Bowl halftime show has become a lightning rod in America’s ongoing culture war. Conservative activist group Turning Point USA is jumping into the fray first with its own alternative halftime show, to be called the All-American Halftime Show. It is not the first time in the history of the Super Bowl that (…)
“Growing up, the acceptance of people in the queer community was kind of non-existent where I grew up,” Musgraves recalled. NPR in September 2024. “I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve met an openly gay person. There was a kind of one-way view, usually majority, that kind of mentality: ‘It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ And so I left Texas with a kind of idea that, well, ‘People choose to be that way.’
According to Musgraves, she “started making friends” in the queer community after moving to Nashville to start her music career.
“I actually had a boyfriend at the time who did me a huge favor. He was from a completely different upbringing than I was,” she added at the time. “I was from a liberal family, like upstate New York, and I had a bunch of gay friends. He just sat me down one day and we had a really hard, honest conversation about it. … It just helped me open my eyes completely and see.”
Rock, for his part, is a prominent supporter President Donald Trump and the conservative moment they often feel different.