Bad Bunny Gave His Grammy to an ICE Detainee? NewsGuard’s False Claim of the Week
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False Claim of the Week: During the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Bad Bunny Handed a Grammy Award to a 5-Year-Old Boy Who Had Been Arrested by ICE
NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” highlights a claim from NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints proprietary database of provably false claims and their debunks. The claim that during the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny handed a Grammy award to a five-year-old boy who had been arrested by ICE in January 2026 is NewsGuard’s “False Claim of the Week” due to its widespread appearance across social media platforms and websites, its high engagement levels, and the high-profile nature of the sources promoting it. Those three factors, as well as both its significant subject matter and potential for harm, makes it our False Claim of the Week.
Debunk: Bad Bunny Handed His Grammy to a Child Actor, Not an ICE Detainee
What’s happening: Liberal social media users are falsely claiming that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, during a touching moment in his Super Bowl halftime show, handed his Grammy award to a five-year-old boy arrested by ICE in Minnesota.
Context: On Jan. 20, 2026, ICE agents detained five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, along with his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, in a high-profile incident that stoked backlash from liberals and other ICE critics. Ramos and Arias were released from ICE custody 12 days later.
A closer look: During his Super Bowl performance on Feb. 8, 2026, Bad Bunny — an outspoken ICE critic who won three Grammy awards on Feb. 1, 2026 — handed one of his Grammy statues to a young boy and said in Spanish, “Always believe in yourself.” Almost immediately, liberal accounts advanced the claim that the boy was Liam Ramos.
Liberal commentator Ed Krassenstein stated on X: “Many of you may have missed this, but the little boy who Bad Bunny handed his Grammy to at the Super Bowl was Liam Ramos! Amazing!” The post received 10 million views and 320,000 likes in one day. Hours later, Krassenstein corrected the claim in a follow-up post that received 1.4 million views. The original incorrect post remained on his account as of Feb. 13. (Krassenstein did not respond to a direct message seeking comment on the matter.)
TikTok user @celiaurbalejo said in a Spanish-language video, “One day you’re arrested by ICE, and the next you’re at Bad Bunny’s halftime show.” The post garnered 744,000 views and 67,000 likes in one day. (The account did not respond to NewsGuard’s direct message seeking comment.)
Actually: The boy featured in Bad Bunny’s halftime show was Lincoln Fox, a five-year-old actor from Costa Mesa, California, according to the website of talent agency The W Group.
On Feb. 9, Fox’s Instagram account, @the_lincfox, posted a video of the performance and said: “An emotional, unforgettable day being cast as the young Benito [Bad Bunny] — a symbolic moment where the future hands the past a Grammy. A reminder that dreams come true and that it’s never too early to dream big.”
Ines Chomnalez contributed reporting.
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