Did Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey or various other people issue an ultimatum to the NFL about ending sponsorship of the Super Bowl if singer Bad Bunny was allowed to perform at the halftime show? No, that's not true: a viral quote that said "I WILL END MY SPONSORSHIP OF THE SUPER BOWL IF THEY LET BAD BUNNY PERFORM AT HALFTIME" was attributed to Quincey but also to Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth and Art Rooney II. However no such announcement appeared on the website of Coca-Cola and there were no news reports about it.
The claim appeared in several viral posts, for example this one (archived here) published on October 4, 2025 which read:
🔺️"I WILL END MY SPONSORSHIP OF THE SUPER BOWL IF THEY LET BAD BUNNY PERFORM AT HALFTIME -- Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey allegedly Issued Shocking Ultimatum, NFL's Response Stuns Millions!"
The battle over America's biggest stage has exploded into open confrontation. Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey has allegedly issued an unprecedented ultimatum: either the NFL cancels Bad Bunny's controversial Super Bowl halftime performance, or the world's most iconic soft drink brand will walk away from one of its most lucrative sponsorship deals.
The warning sent shockwaves across the sports and business world, raising questions about culture, commerce, and the true cost of chasing global trends over American traditions.
This is what the image in the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Oct 6 06:29:50 2025 UTC)
The earliest version of the rumor Lead Stories has identified so far appeared on X on October 3, 2025 (archived here):
"I WILL END MY SPONSORSHIP OF THE SUPER BOWL IF THEY LET BAD BUNNY PERFORM AT HALFTIME -- Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey Issues Shocking Ultimatum, NFL's Response Stuns Millions!"
-- Desiree Stine (@DesireeStine50) October 3, 2025
The battle over America's biggest stage has exploded into open confrontation. Coca-Cola CEO James... pic.twitter.com/YtrasKRbmw
A statement about a politically charged topic like this would have been a major announcement for a company like Coca-Cola to make, yet there was nothing about it on Coca-Cola's media center page (archived here) or in the list of press releases of their investor relations website (archived here) at the time of writing. Lead Stories reached out to Coca-Cola for comment and will update this story when a reply is received.
A search of Google News for the quote "I WILL END MY SPONSORSHIP OF THE SUPER BOWL IF THEY LET BAD BUNNY PERFORM AT HALFTIME" brought up just one result (archived here), an article (archived here) that also noted the lack of evidence for the claim.
Other social media posts attributed the exact same quote to other people, for example Elon Musk (archived here), Pete Hegseth (archived here) and Art Rooney II (archived here) indicating the messages were most likely being spread to attract clicks and outrage.
(Image source: collage of social media posts put together by Lead Stories.)
In the days since the announcement of the Bad Bunny halftime show there has been a streak of posts by foreign-operated websites and Facebook pages falsely claiming various people and organizations were demanding replacement of the artist.
