1994–present
Bad Bunny News: Singer Won’t Tour in the U.S. Over Immigration Concerns
Bad Bunny is set to kick off his world tour this fall in support of his sixth album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, but he won’t be stopping in the United States. The Puerto Rican rapper and singer, who is finishing up a residency in San Juan, recently told i-D magazine that he decided not to include any stops in the U.S. largely over concerns that his fans would be subject to deportation.
“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate—I’ve performed there many times,” he said in the interview published on September 10. “But there was the issue of—like, f––ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
Bad Bunny has previously spoken out about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calling out the agency in June after witnessing a raid in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated U.S. territory. Although ICE has been conducting large-scale deportations on the island since January, these raids are more commonplace within the 50 states.
“I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.,” the 31-year-old Grammy winner said, adding they can travel to Puerto Rico or “to any part of the world” to see him perform.
Bad Bunny’s world tour is slated to start in the Dominican Republic on November 21 and conclude in Belgium next July.
Who Is Bad Bunny?
Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican musician with a global following. He became a success while writing and singing in Spanish, unlike previous acts who switched to English to broaden their fan bases. The three-time Grammy winner is known for the songs “Titi Me Pregunto,” “Dakiti,” “Moscow Mule,” and “I Like It,” a No. 1 hit with Cardi B and J Balvin. His 2020 album El Último Tour del Mundo became the first all-Spanish album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. He has repeated the feat with his three subsequent albums, including 2025’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Bad Bunny’s fourth studio album, Un Verano Sin Ti, became the first Spanish-language album to earn a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.
Quick Facts
REAL NAME: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio
BORN: March 10, 1994
BIRTHPLACE: Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces
Early Life and Family
Bad Bunny was born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio on March 10, 1994, in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, which is approximately 30 miles west of San Juan. He was raised in a lower middle-class household in Vega Baja’s Almirante Sur neighborhood. His father was a truck driver, and his mother taught English. He has two younger brothers, Bernie and Bysael.
Young Bad Bunny was a fan of reggaeton, a blend of hip-hop and reggae, and liked performers such as Daddy Yankee and Vico C. He sometimes got to hear reggaetonero Tego Calderón in the car on the way to school. Benito also listened to salsa, merengue, and rock. At one point, his preferred music was the Bee Gees.
Benito sang in the choir of his local Catholic church until he was 13. He then concentrated on making his own beats in his room and free-styling at school.
He enrolled in the audiovisual-communications program at the University of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo campus. To support his studies, he bagged groceries at an Econo supermarket.
How Did Bad Bunny Get His Name?
Bad Bunny shared the origins of his name with ET in 2018. “When I was a little boy in school, I had to dress up as a bunny, and there’s a picture of me with an annoyed face. And when I saw it, I thought I should name myself ‘Bad Bunny,’” he explained. “It’s a name I knew would market well. A bunny is something so common that I thought to myself, every time someone sees one, they’ll remember my music.”
Music Career: Hit Songs and Albums
Bad Bunny first began sharing his music on SoundCloud when he was still a college student. In 2016, the popularity of his song “Diles” resulted in calls from producers, which Bad Bunny had to answer while at work in the grocery store. After he found a manager, Noah Assad, the pair developed a plan to get attention by releasing singles and videos on YouTube instead of trying to sign with major record labels.
In 2017, Bad Bunny was part of a number of successful singles, such as “Pa Ti,” “Loco Pero Millonario,” and “Sensualidad.” His singles success continued in 2018 with the Grammy-nominated “I Like It.” He recorded the song with rapper Cardi B and reggaeton star J Balvin, and it became a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 that July.
Bad Bunny’s debut album X 100PRE came out on Christmas Eve 2018. It climbed to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart. The record showcases Bad Bunny’s skills in multiple music genres, which provided a way for him to both cope with his success and demonstrate his abilities. X 100PRE received a Latin Grammy for Best Urban Music Album and became diamond-certified by May 2019.
The next month, Bad Bunny released another collaboration with J Balvin: an EP called Oasis. It earned a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Rock, Urban, or Alternative Album.
Bad Bunny performed at the 2020 Super Bowl halftime with Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and J Balvin. On Leap Day of that year, he released a reggaeton album, YHLQMDLG (Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana, which translates to “I do whatever I want”). It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The diamond-certified album also won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop or Urban Album, which Bad Bunny dubbed his “gringo Grammy.”
In May 2020, another Bad Bunny album, Las Que No Iban a Salir, arrived. Its 10 tracks include outtakes from previous recording sessions. Later that year his single “Dakiti” had a No. 1 debut on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs and spent 27 weeks at the top of the chart. On Thanksgiving 2020, Bad Bunny released his third album of the year, El Último Tour del Mundo. It became the first all-Spanish album to launch at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and it later won Best Música Urbana Album at the 2022 Grammys.
To cap off his banner year, Spotify declared Bad Bunny the Artist of the Year in December 2020. His music had more than 8 billion streams on the platform.
In a 2021 interview, Bad Bunny said: “I’m pleased that we are in a time where I don’t need to change anything about myself—not my musical style, not my language, not my culture—to go far. That doesn’t mean I’ll never sing in English. I already sang in Japanese, so maybe one day I’ll sing in English. It feels great to do things my way.”
The song Bad Bunny sang in Japanese was 2021’s “Yonaguni,” which became his first solo top 10 hit on the Hot 100 after numerous collaborative efforts. Bad Bunny’s musical collaborators include Nicki Minaj, Ricky Martin, Daddy Yankee, Ñengo Flow, Jowell y Randy, Ozuna, Enrique Iglesias, Drake, Maluma, Karol G, Rosalía, Marc Anthony, and Will Smith.
Un Verano Sin Ti, Bad Bunny’s fourth studio album, came out in May 2022. Like El Ultimo Tour before it, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, spending 13 weeks at the top, and won the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album. Un Verano Sin Ti was also Bad Bunny’s sixth consecutive release to reach No. 1 on the Top Latin Albums chart. The hit record also broke new ground for the artist and the Recording Academy, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. It was Bad Bunny’s first nod in the category and the first time a Spanish-language album was competing for the top honor.
He followed up with Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, which translates to “nobody knows what will happen tomorrow,” in October 2023. The No. 1 record, which featured the single “Un Preview,” later earned him another Grammy nomination for Best Música Urbana Album.
Bad Bunny’s latest work, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, arrived in January 2025 and spent four weeks atop the Billboard 200. The singles “DTMF” and “Baile Inolvidable” broke into the top 5 of the Hot 100. To promote his sixth studio album, the rapper is set to embark on his upcoming world tour in November 2025 before concluding the concert series in July 2026. The tour notably avoids the U.S. due to Bad Bunny’s concerns about ICE raids at his shows.
Activism
Bad Bunny’s music often contains socially conscious messages. Following the devastation of Hurricane Maria, he tried to capture Puerto Rico’s spirit in “Estamos Bien.” When he performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Bad Bunny reminded the audience that numerous Puerto Rican households were still without power a year after the September 2017 storm.
With 2018’s “Sólo de Mí,” Bad Bunny addressed domestic violence in Latin America. During another Tonight Show appearance in February 2020, Bad Bunny brought attention to the murder of a trans woman in Puerto Rico by wearing a shirt that said Mataron a Alexa, no a un hombre con falda, which means “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt.”
During the 2020 quarantine period of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bad Bunny serenaded New Yorkers while riding on top of a truck through the city. At his final stop, he sang to health workers at Harlem Hospital.
Bad Bunny has also engaged in direct activism. He took part in July 2019 protests demanding the resignation of Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló after text messages revealed the governor and other officials being sexist and homophobic as well as mocking hurricane victims. Bad Bunny also penned the protest song “Afilando Los Cuchillos.” Prior to the 2020 election, he urged people to vote.
Bad Bunny’s Good Bunny Foundation aids children in poverty. He partnered with Cheetos’ Deja Tu Huella campaign to distribute $500,000 among 10 students who are serving their communities.
Ex-Girlfriend Kendall Jenner
Bad Bunny is currently single, but his most recent relationship was with television personality and model Kendall Jenner. The two met through mutual friends in February 2023, and rumors of their relationship began almost immediately as the two were regularly spotted at restaurants and events. They attended the Met Gala together that May and publicly made out during a Drake concert in August.
Nevertheless, Bad Bunny largely declined to discuss the relationship or his private life in interviews, telling Vanity Fair: “[Fans] don’t know how you feel, they don’t know how you live, they don’t know anything, and I really don’t want them to know. I’m not really interested in clarifying anything because I have no commitment to clarify anything to anyone.” He and Jenner broke up in September 2024.
Previously, Bad Bunny dated jewelry designer Gabriela Berlingeri from 2017 to January 2023. He met her at a restaurant in Puerto Rico, and the pair spent the COVID-19 quarantine period together. Berlingeri sang on his song “En Casita.”
Bad Bunny has demonstrated an open-minded attitude toward sex and gender. “It does not define me,” he said of his sexuality in 2020. “At the end of the day, I don’t know if in 20 years I will like a man. One never knows in life. But at the moment I am heterosexual, and I like women.”
Fashion Ventures and Acting Career
In addition to his musical success, Bad Bunny has explored other industries like fashion and acting. Known for his unique fashion sensibilities, he has designed clothes and sneakers for Adidas. The musician even collaborated with soccer star Lionel Messi on a series of shoes for the athletic apparel giant. Elsewhere, Bad Bunny put his own spin on a series of glow-in-the-dark Crocs, which quickly sold out after their release.
Onscreen, Bad Bunny had a four-episode supporting role in the TV show Narcos: Mexico in 2021. The next year, he appeared in the Brad Pitt–led action movie Bullet Train. More roles arrived in two major 2025 movies. Bad Bunny played a waiter-turned-caddy in Adam Sandler’s highly anticipated Happy Gilmore 2 and shared the screen with Austin Butler in the crime heist Caught Stealing.
Quotes
- It makes me really proud to get to this level by speaking in Spanish, and not only in Spanish, in the Spanish we speak in Puerto Rico, without changing my accent.
- I want people to remember me as someone genuine, someone with a big heart. For being myself. That’s what leaving your mark is about, doing something that represents who you really are.
- My message shouldn’t be a feminist message. It’s a universal message.
- I never felt as masculine as I did the day I dressed up like a drag queen.
- There are people who listen to reggaeton and love it, and at the same time, they have never felt represented within it. In 20 or 30 years, nobody had worried about that, but I did.
- I am not a fan of repeating the same formula. Each album that I’ve made has its own identity.
Universal Music Latino Oasis by Bad Bunny and J Balvin Vinyl
RIGERS FITNESS Bad Bunny Albums Sweatshirt
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