Bad Bunny’s Sign Language Interpreter Is Ready to Make Super Bowl History

Celimar Rivera Cosme is a huge Bad Bunny fan. So in 2022, she posted a video on Instagram to address the artist directly.

“Hi, Benito, Bad Bunny, hope you see this video,” she said in Spanish while signing. “Did you know that there are roughly 100,000 Deaf people in Puerto Rico? The majority like your songs, but they haven’t had the chance to experience a concert with an interpreter.”

A week later, Rivera Cosme was on tour with Bad Bunny as one of his official sign language interpreters. She’ll now join the Puerto Rican star as he headlines the Super Bowl halftime show at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. It’s first time in the show’s history that it will feature lyrics entirely in Spanish, and the first time Puerto Rican Sign Language will be in the spotlight on one of the country’s biggest stages.

“I’m so excited,” Rivera Cosme tells KQED in Puerto Rican Sign Language, or LSPR, during an interview assisted by an interpreter. “And the Deaf people of Puerto Rico are happy that the Super Bowl will be accessible to them in their own sign language.”

Rivera Cosme will sign Bad Bunny’s lyrics in LSPR, bouncing on stage with the full-body energy of the music. LSPR is different from American Sign Language, or ASL, and Bad Bunny’s distinctly Puerto Rican slang already figures into its vocabulary.

Rivera Cosme’s Super Bowl halftime performance marks an important shift for Deaf representation. Historically, concerts have featured hearing interpreters, but many Deaf audiences prefer Deaf interpreters who are more fluent in their language and culture.

Since she’s partially Deaf, Rivera Cosme spends time ahead of the concert listening to the set list through headphones, reading the lyrics and preparing to give a dynamic show for Deaf Bad Bunny fans who enjoy the bass-heavy reggaeton beats and high-energy salsas through their vibrations.

Rivera Cosme’s appearance on the Super Bowl stage comes at a high point in Bad Bunny’s career. Last summer, she was one of the interpreters at his 30-date concert residency in Puerto Rico, No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (I Don’t Want to Leave Here), which injected hundreds of millions of dollars into Puerto Rico’s economy.

With lyrics that capture the grief and alienation of Puerto Ricans forced to leave home in search of opportunities, Bad Bunny’s 2025 album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS became a global phenomenon that continues to resonate across cultures. And aside from the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny is skipping the U.S. entirely on his ongoing world tour, which has broken even Beyoncé’s records in terms of earnings and attendance.

As she looks forward to the Super Bowl, Rivera Cosme says she’s especially proud to interpret songs that spotlight Puerto Rican traditions, like “Café Con Ron,” which features the folk ensemble Los Pleneros de la Cresta.

“I grew up in the mountains, in the countryside,” she says. “So I really identify with that song.”

Octavio Cuenca Maldonado, president of the National Hispanic Latino Association of the Deaf, says this Super Bowl halftime show is much more than a performance. Speaking through an interpreter, he says Rivera Cosme is providing crucial representation for Deaf Latinos.

“This is about language, culture, identity, and recognition by the world,” he says.

It’s rare for interpreters’ cultural background to reflect the music itself, says AV Vilavong, a Deaf concert interpreter who performs at major music festivals across the country.

“The fact that Celimar is Puerto Rican, there are cultural nuances that are already embedded in how she, as a Deaf interpreter, will match the tone, the cultural aspects, the songs, the significance behind the slang for particular vocabulary,” Vilavong says through an interpeter. “It’s embedded in who she is as an individual.”

Bad Bunny’s halftime performance resonates here in the Bay Area, which has a long history when it comes to disability justice. In the late ’70s, protesters occupied a San Francisco federal building demanding that the government enforce laws promising equal access to public services. It was a turning point for the disability justice movement that became known as the 504 Sit-In.

Ardavan Guity, director of Deaf studies at Ohlone College in Fremont, says the Bay Area is a hub for nonprofits, schools and services for the Deaf community.

“There are some states where they are ignorant about the Deaf community,” he says through an interpreter. “I found that not to be the case in the Bay Area. The Bay Area is fantastic when it comes to that.”

Now, Bad Bunny’s halftime show is poised to add a new chapter to the region’s long legacy of advocating for accessibility.

Rivera Cosme says this historic moment isn’t just about her. “I know I’m going to be the one standing up there,” she says, “but it’s the Deaf community of my island that’s going to shine.”