A Northeast Philly woman helped break down Bad Bunny’s halftime show stage in under seven minutes

Delilah Dee was crying from the moment she woke up on Super Bowl Sunday.

“I’m an emotional person, I just feel things heavily,” said the marketing professional from Mayfair. “And it was more because I knew the impact that this was going to have.”

On Sunday night, Dee was one of the hundreds of team members who worked behind the scenes of Bad Bunny’s halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.’s Levi’s Stadium.

In Philadelphia, Dee, 35, works in marketing and branding and runs Jefatona, a social community for Latina women, and La Cultura Flow, which organizes Latin American night parties as way of celebrating the community.

“Everything I’ve been standing on is just really promoting the Latino experience in a positive light,” said Dee. “I build a community everywhere I go.”

So what made her travel to the West Coast and work on the Super Bowl?

“Benito!,” she said. “I feel like I’ve shared a lot of milestones with Bad Bunny.”

When he first played Wells Fargo Center in 2022, Dee was in charge of an art installation used at the show.

“He was the first reggaeton artist at the time to sell out the Wells Fargo and I was there for that,” she said.

When he was the first Spanish-language artist to headline Made in America in September 2022, Dee was the promotions director at iHeart Radio and worked on the show.

She had just launched La Cultura Front when Bad Bunny launched his residency in Puerto Rico last July. So naturally, their first party was Bad Bunny-themed. When he announced his final concert would stream on Amazon, Dee threw a watch party in Northern Liberties’ Craft Hall.

Last September, when Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime show performer, Dee’s friends texted her asking if she’d host a watch party again. She said no.

“I said, ‘Guys, I know this sounds crazy, and it may be a little bit delusional, but I’m going to be at the Super Bowl.’”

“But you know what’s so funny is that my community was so supportive of me. No one thought I was crazy. They were like, ‘You know what?, Delilah. If anyone’s gonna make it to the Super Bowl, it’s gonna be you.”

Thanks to her best friend who lives in Los Angeles and works in the event management industry, Dee applied for a job at the Super Bowl in November. On Dec. 31, she was accepted for a job on the field team.

“I got the email while I was at the gym. I just started to break down . I couldn’t even finish my workout,” said Dee, who was a part of the team that helped dismantle Bad Bunny’s grass and casita-filled stage in less than seven minutes after the halftime show on Sunday night.

For the last two weeks, she has been in Santa Clara, and staying up till late at night working on the halftime show rehearsals and working her job during East Coast hours. Bad Bunny joined the rehearsals last week.

“We had a full dress rehearsal on the Thursday before Super Bowl, and he made sure to thank everyone. He stopped the rehearsal and he was like, ‘You know guys, this isn’t about me. This is about our culture, our community. All of you guys play a part in this.’”

Having worked in the events space for a very long time, Dee admitted she is not the one to fangirl over celebrities.

But, she said, fighting back tears as she drove to the San Jose airport for her flight back home, “especially in this political climate we’re in and we feel like we’re constantly under attack for our Latin roots, we need a little bit of healing.”

“We need to feel seen, to feel heard. To know that I am playing a part in that … I don’t take it lightly at all," said Dee, who is of Puerto Rican and Peruvian descent.

The Philadelphia born-and-bred in her was, however, disappointed by the absence of the Birds on-field.

“I wanted it to be an Eagle and Benito Bowl but I still made the best of it. Go Birds!”