‘The View’ Hosts React (& Get Emotional) to Bad Bunny Halftime Show

The cohosts of The View were united in their praise for Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime show performance, but for some, it was a very personal and emotional experience.

Sunny Hostin, whose mother is from Puerto Rico, was particularly enthralled by the showcase and wore a pava straw hat to celebrate.

“You don’t have to understand or speak Spanish to feel the joy and to feel the unity and the message of inclusivity that was there,” Hostin said, praising the show as “an homage to the island.”

She explained that she chose to wear the pava hat on air because, “This hat used to be worn by farmers in Puerto Rico, working the sugar cane fields. And it’s just made from palm straw, but at a time, at some point, it was sort of, it meant poverty, but Puerto Ricans reclaimed it. And instead of it meaning like El hibarito, like the farmer, it means your connection to the land, to the island, and that’s why we wear it with such pride.”

Hostin said that her favorite details of the show included the sugar cane field, a game of dominoes in play, and the setting, and she also shared her pick for the most politically-charged element: “A very important political statement that was made is that the power grid in Puerto Rico has been a problem for so long.”

Ana Navarro, who is originally from Nicaragua, was also deeply moved by the halftime show and was choking up while describing why.

“This is amazing to me: Just 10 years ago, Benito Martinez Ocasio, Bad Bunny, was bagging groceries at a supermarket in San Juan and uploading his music to YouTube. And 10 years later, here he is at the biggest stage in the world,” she said. “One of the things he said … was that the reason he was there is because he had belief in himself, and he urged the rest of us to believe in ourselves.”

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She then praised Bad Bunny for being consistently grateful about his opportunity to play at the Super Bowl and said that it was a balm for her after a year of stress.

“There were so many people texting me yesterday and on my timeline who told me they were weeping, and I can’t overstate what it means to the Latino community that has seen itself persecuted, attacked, racially profiled. We have seen, for the last year, our children dragged through the streets. We have seen our pregnant women, our elderly, dragged through the streets, disappeared, and detained. To have Bad Bunny use that platform to say, ‘Do not other-ize us. We are all part of America, and we are all equal, and we all belong. And love is stronger.'” Navarro also noted the symbolism of Bad Bunny giving his Grammy to a child and including Ricky Martin, who is also from Puerto Rico.

“Micro joys help us deal with macro sadness. I have had macro sadness for over a year under Trump, seeing what he has done to my community and what he continues to do to my community, I am so grateful to Bad Bunny for having given me that micro joy,” she concluded.

The other cohosts also had praise for the halftime show.

Whoopi Goldberg criticized Donald Trump and other detractors of the show, saying, with a laugh, “I think you don’t recognize excellence and creativity when you see it.” Alyssa Farah Griffin said that it was a “smart business decision” to have Bad Bunny do the show and said that while she didn’t understand the words, she was into it: “I was like, I’m following this. I love this. People are dancing, baby might come out like, we’re good.” And Sara Haines agreed that the point of the showcase was to get audiences to dance, and it worked. “There was no one that could have watched last night that didn’t dance.”

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