I’m still riding a high from Bad Bunny’s phenomenal halftime show Sunday at Super Bowl LX. This was the most joyful entertaining halftime show I’ve ever seen and was a triumph on so many levels. Joy and entertainment are universal and when fascist white supremacists try to gatekeep that they will fail every time. People are talking more about Benito’s performance than about the Seattle Seahawks trouncing the New England Patriots. The final numbers aren’t in yet, but it’s thought to be the most-watched halftime show in history and to have overtaken the 133 million who watched Kendrick Lamar’s performance last year. This was a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and history. The staging, choreography, set and dancers were all top notch and I’m sure we’ll be unpacking details for a while.
During the set up for the show, which included a casita and only took seven minutes(!), I noticed that the bushes were people. I was looking forward to some kind of coordinated bush dance, which sadly didn’t happen. We did get plenty of posts afterwards from people who played the bushes/grass in the show. My threads feed has been full of them! NBC has more details, including quotes from people inside the grass costumes.
Some of the biggest stars to emerge from this year’s Super Bowl halftime show never even showed their faces on camera. They were the ones who dressed as bunches of grass to transform a football stadium into the sugarcane fields of Puerto Rico.
Hidden inside the sugarcane grass beside him were humans hired to stand there in costume. The realization that real people were cast to play hundreds of bushes at the Super Bowl turned the inconspicuous performers into a social media sensation overnight.
After the show, dozens of people online revealed to friends and family members that they, indeed, performed at the Super Bowl — even if their identities weren’t discernible.
José Villanueva, a Bad Bunny superfan, was among the hundreds of performers who were paid $18.70 an hour to perform as a bunch of grass. He said the experience felt “too good to be true.”
“You get a view if you’re in the stands, if you pay to watch a Super Bowl. You get another view if you’re watching through a screen,” Villanueva said. “But being on the field is something totally different. I wanted to cry, but I was holding in the tears.”
According to the casting call by the live events staffing agency Backlit, the role was “not a dancing role,” but successful applicants would be “performing structured movements and blocking as part of the larger production.” A tentative schedule listed eight shifts over two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, including one final 14-hour shift days before the game.
Though the listing didn’t specify what exactly the role entailed, it hinted that it would involve “exposure to costume materials that may include natural fibers.” It also indicated a preference for those with experience in marching, and it required applicants to be able to wear and move in full-body costumes weighing up to 40 pounds.
José Villaneuva, one of the grass performers quoted above, told NBC that the costumes were heavy and difficult to move in. He said 20% of the people in the costumes quit during rehearsals and that people were having panic attacks. I’m claustrophobic and doubt I could last in one of those. The level of difficulty depended on where the performers were placed and how much they had to move around. Another person who played a bush, Andrew Athias, wrote an essay for Business Insider. He can talk about it now that his NDA is no longer in effect. Athias said his part was easy but agreed that the grass costume was uncomfortable and scratchy. Everyone had safety goggles to protect their eyes. Athias told Business Insider that the pay was $18.70 an hour, or about $1,300. That sounds fair and it must have been amazing to be there. I would be telling that story for the rest of my life.
Here are some of my favorite posts from people who played grass on Sunday!
I can FINALLY let the cat out of the bag….or the grass
I flew all the way from Philly to be grass in the Bad Bunny halftime show 🌿
AMA pic.twitter.com/HQROAJtC4K
— The Reese's Guy⁷ (@AndrewAthias) February 9, 2026
Never wished to be a bush so badly pic.twitter.com/3AcaubMnjw
— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) February 9, 2026
I WAS A BUSH FOR THE BAD BUNNY SUPER BOWL https://t.co/UrU3ZARs8l pic.twitter.com/RTjR987DAY
— manny🧸 (@Samirararah) February 9, 2026
Photos credit: Scott Strazzante/Starface Photo/Cover Images and via Twitter and Instagram
Freaking awesome! Makes the show that much better. It was so good.
Not dancing during that set must have taken super human discipline. Kudos to the bushes!!
It’s the adult equivalent of playing a tree in your school play and where do I sign up?? I watched a behind-the-scenes video about it, these people were actually crucial players because the halftime production is limited in how many heavy vehicles they can use for set up and tear down because of the damage to the grass on the field. This was a creative (and fun!) way to get around that and build such a cool set.
OK, I was wondering why they were people in there, i thought maybei missed something, , but I guess it’s probably a logistic solution.
Yes what a wonderful solution and like many have said THE costume for Halloween
Okay, this is amazing. To be a bush in the Super Bowl!
And I just noticed the badass jackets they got! Wear those babies with pride!!
Between this and being a float holder for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, I desperately want a life where I can just go on delightful side quests.
What a fun experience for them! One of the guys was interviewed on the news and said the requirement for the grass people was they had to be tall and fit.
Important note: that wasn’t grass, it was SUGAR CANE, the first resource that Puerto Rico had stolen from them & exploited. Sugar cane makes rum and sugar, 2 VERY important resources. Sugar cane essentially led to colonial style slavery.
I had to explain that it was caña to EVERYONE!
Throughout the performance, all I could think about was, how did they move all those planters out on the field so quickly?
Amazed when I found out…so simple, but still amazing!
Awesome, I’ll be spending my evening looking for all of these folks on Instagram!