Wait a minute, is that… Bad Bunny being a very silly rabbit?
This week, a video has gone viral that appears to show the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican rap superstar cozying up to another man at a bar, spreading across X like wildfire.
In the four second-long clip, the camera zooms in to find Bad Bunny with his arm around someone, and things are looking rather intimate. We maybe see a quick kiss on the cheek, too, or maybe that’s just the artist leaning in to tell the mystery man something—they are in the middle of a crowded and (presumably) loud bar after all!
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So what, exactly, are we looking at here? Is it even real?
Basically, the whole thing just leaves us with a lot of questions. All we know for sure? We wish it was us!
For starters: yes, this is a real video, and not some AI-generated clip based on our private diaries.
But what seems to be tripping people up is the context, as there are all sorts of ideas about where and why this “intimate moment” is taking place. According to a widely circulated tweet from the account @LyricVault, the video was recorded at a gay bar in Nashville. And to that we say: Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.
The thing is, @LyricVault is a “satire” account—they say so right there in their bio! However, their tweet got shared enough that people are taking it is gospel, once again jumping to conclusions based on very little information. (Though to be fair, if that is satire, we’re…. not really seeing the humor in it.)
To figure out the real context, we had to go a bit deeper down the internet rabbit hole—pun intended. Best we can tell, the original source of the clip is a TikTok from user @wet.wiener, which is slightly longer and includes the text, “Bad Bunny had a [wild] night in Nashville” over the video.
@wet.wiener Ig thats some way to say hello… #nashville #barstoolsports @Barstool Nashville ♬ original sound – Wetwiener
In the caption, they tag Barstool Nashville, a venue owned by the popular Barstool Sports site that is decidedly not a gay bar. But it does have brick walls and neon signs sporting the Barstool logo—both of which can be spotted in the clip. Plus, Bad Bunny’s “Most Wanted” North American tour just made its stop at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TV on May 11 and he had a few free days before his next show in Atlanta on the 14th, so the location checks out.
Related*
Bad Bunny opens up about kissing men and now we love him even more
After locking lips with a backup dancer at the VMAs, Bad Bunny nearly broke the internet when his movie kiss with Gael Garcia Bernal leaked online.
As for the mystery man, it’s a little harder to say, since his back is turned to the camera. But the clip made enough noise on Gay Twitter™ that it started to gain wider attention, and eventually Bad Bunny stans caught wind of it and set the record straight. Literally.
As a community note on @LyricsVault’s post now says, the person Bad Bunny is talking to is his brother. Specifically, fans have pointed out that it appears to be the rapper’s younger brother, Bysael Martínez Ocasio.
And, if you go to Bysael’s public Instagram account, a photo from his story shows him wearing an outfit very similar to the one in the video. The hat, the buzzed back of his head, the earrings and necklace—it all looks pretty conclusive to us!
So, no, Bad Bunny didn’t sneak off to some Nashville gay bar after his latest show and cozy up to a hot romantic fling (that we know of). It was a very, very loud sports bar—and that’s just how family talks to each other sometimes!
Besides, until further notice, Bad Bunny still considers himself to be straight. Though he’s both proven to be a total LGBTQ+ ally and has acknowledged the fluidity of sexuality, for now anything more is just a possibility.
“At the end of the day, I don’t know if in 20 years I will like a man,” he told the LA Times in 2020. “One never knows in life. But at the moment I am heterosexual and I like women.”
And just a hint for everyone: If you are, by chance, interested in seeing Bad Bunny actually lock lips with another man, you’ve got plenty of opportunities. For one, he memorably kissed a dancer during his performance of “Tití Me Preguntó” at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.
Then in Cassandro, the 2023 biopic of gay luchador Saúl Armendáriz, Bad Bunny and forever film crush Gael García Bernal share one heck of a steamy smooch, which you can stream right now on Amazon Prime Video.
With that, consider The Case Of Bad Bunny & The Mystery Makeout officially debunked!
Related*
Gael García Bernal on what it’s like to kiss Bad Bunny: “It was actually really nice”
“It was actually really nice to work with him, even though it was fast.”
Kangol2
Eso es su hermanito Bysael.
Louis
Sigh.
Another non-article.
It was abundantly clear from the clip that it was platonic.