‘Sorry Harry’; Bad Bunny displays public apology to Harry Styles during final performance at Coachella 2023

It looks like that beef between Bad Bunny and Harry Styles has been officially squashed, after the superstar hip-hop artist took to the stage one more time this weekend at Coachella 2023. But before shade is thrown directly at Bad Bunny, real name Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, it turns out that it’s his team that should be the ones trolled online rather than the Grammy winner himself.

The controversy surrounding Bunny and Harry Styles arose during the rapper’s set at the first weekend of Coachella 2023, which marked the first ever solo Latino performer in the festival’s history.  His dazzling stage show included a Tweet on the big screens he was performing in front of that read “Goodnight Benito could do As It Was but Harry could never do El Apagaon,” the name of the song Bad Bunny was performing at the time.

That prompted rumours of a beef between the two male performers, but as it transpired it was some poor guidance that the group responsible for the big screen production included without prior notice to Bad Bunny, nor his approval. Sturdy.co, the visual content company that produced the images for Bunny’s set, also reportedly confirmed that the artist did not approve the Styles-dissing tweet and said it also did not intend to throw shade at the British singer-actor.

At the most public setting he could use, the second weekend of Coachella, Bad Bunny then decided to put the “accidental” beef to rest by including a new message during his performance - this time reading: “Sorry Harry. It was a mistake from my team. We love you. <3.” Beef squashed, we assume - if there was any beef from Bad Bunny to begin with. 

Explaining the phrase that was included during Bad Bunny’s first night performance at Coachella, a spokesperson for his team admitted that the aesthetic for the production was meant to embody the spirit of the musician and that the original comment was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Harry Styles that played up the machismo of Bad Bunny - the only problem there was, of course, Bad Bunny not giving sign off. Assumption, as they say, makes a fool out of Bad Bunny and Harry Styles on this occasion.

Bunny’s weekend two performances at Coachella included collaborations with Jhay Cortez, Arcangel, Jowell & Randy, Grupo Frontera and Jose Feliciano. Prior to his set, Bunny joined Gorillaz for a surprise performance of their collaboration “Tormenta,” making him the talk of Coachella 2023, despite Frank Ocean’s series of errors during his first weekend leading him to cancel his second weekend appearance.