Is Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, secretly a fan of Bad Bunny? This question arises after she criticized the artist, who performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, despite hinting at an affinity for his music on social media.

Just weeks before her public critique, Leavitt shared a New Year’s Eve Instagram post featuring a compilation titled “2025 End Now.” Notably, Bad Bunny’s hit song “DTMF,” a favorite on Spotify, can be distinctly heard six seconds into the video.

The track accompanies visuals of Leavitt in various settings, including the Oval Office with her son Niko, attending the 2025 Super Bowl clash between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, and enjoying the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., with her family.

Alert followers picked up on the inclusion of Bad Bunny’s music, with one user sharing the viral meme of the artist’s surprise at winning Album of the Year at the Grammys.

“Bad Bunny playing in the recap is the funniest thing I’ve seen this year,” quipped a commenter, just 19 days into the new year. “She secretly loves him like the rest of us,” another observed, suggesting Leavitt might have more in common with the artist’s fans than she lets on.

‘Bad Bunny playing for the recap is the funniest s*** I’ve seen so far this year. And we’re only 19 days in,’ another wrote. ‘She lowkey loves him like the rest of us.’ 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  

Publicly, Leavitt has not been a fan. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is photographed at a press briefing on Tuesday. This month she’s twice shared criticism of Bad Bunny, but she sampled his most popular song in her New Year’s Eve Instagram post 

Bad Bunny performed the halftime show at Sunday’s Super Bowl. Leavitt had said prior to the game that President Donald Trump would prefer to watch the Turning Point USA ‘All American’ halftime show that featured Kid Rock over Bad Bunny’s version 

Two days after the Grammys, Leavitt was given the opportunity by a reporter to respond to what the Puerto Rican crooner said on the award stage.

After earning his first of two Grammys, Bad Bunny told the audience, ‘Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say: ICE out.’ 

‘We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans,’ he said. 

Leavitt responded by saying that she thought it was ‘very ironic and frankly sad to see celebrities who live in gated communities, with private security with millions of dollars to spend protecting themselves, trying to demonize law enforcement, public servants who work for the United States government to enforce our nation’s laws.’

Her comments came ten days after Customs and Border Protection agents killed Minneapolis man Alex Pretti, prompting widespread protests over Trump’s mass deportation policies.  

She added that ‘you didn’t hear this same type of uproar from celebrities in Hollywood when the previous administration allowed an invasion of our nation’s borders and allowed innocent women and girls like Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley to be killed, raped, and murdered at the hands of people who should have never been in our country in the first place.’ 

Leavitt argued that the uproar was over ‘law enforcement who are simply trying to do their jobs to remove violent predators.’ 

As last weekend’s Super Bowl neared, Leavitt was asked whether Trump would tune in, or switch the channel at his Mar-a-Lago watch party to Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show.

One commenter who heard Bad Bunny playing from Karoline Leavitt’s Instagram account shared this image, which has become a meme. The Puerto Rican crooner took a moment after learning at the Grammys that he had won Album of the Year 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked to respond to Puerto Rican singer and Super Bowl halftime performer Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE comments at the Grammy Awards during a press gaggle on February 3, two days after the ceremony

Bad Bunny (left) dances with surprise Super Bowl halftime guest Lady Gaga (right) during Sunday night’s performance in Santa Clara, California. Some conservatives were angry that Bad Bunny planned to perform in Spanish  

‘I think the president would much prefer a Kid Rock performance over Bad Bunny,’ she said from the podium. ‘I must say that.’ 

Back when Bad Bunny was first announced as the halftime performer in October 2025, Leavitt was more guarded, saying she had her ‘own feelings’ about the Puerto Rican artist performing at the Super Bowl but kept them to herself. 

The TPUSA event featured Kid Rock and several country artists and was branded the ‘all-American’ halftime show. 

Puerto Rico is part of the United States – thus making Bad Bunny American – but some conservative pundits complained about him singing in Spanish.

Megyn Kelly said it was an insult to ‘the heartland.’

‘That kind of football is ours,’ Kelly said, who lives in New York City. ‘The halftime show and everything around it needs to stay quintessentially American. Not Spanish. Not Muslim. Not anything other than good old-fashioned American apple pie. There should be a meatloaf, maybe some fried chicken.’ 

Meghan McCain, a conservative commentator and the daughter of the late GOP Senator John McCain, fiercely defended Bad Bunny’s halftime performance on X this week. 

‘Been listening to nothing but Bad Bunny since the Super Bowl,’ she wrote. ‘Congrats to all the lunatics who have inadvertently turned me into the biggest Bad Bunny stan on the planet now.’