Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny graces the cover of the new Vanity Fair issue, and in a wide-ranging, candid interview, gives insight into new music, how he really felt about his album of the year Grammy loss and addresses his relationship with Kendall Jenner.
The “Me Porto Bonito” singer explains that when he lost album of the year at the Grammys on Feb. 4, he had mixed feelings. Although he understood how momentous that win could’ve been, Benito felt some sort of relief. “It wasn’t because I didn’t feel I was deserving or because I thought I couldn’t win. It was because I don’t really want to hear myself,” he said in the interview published Tuesday (Sept. 12). “I know I was going to get emotional. It would have been powerful and hard, dealing with that pride.”
Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti made history as the first all Spanish-language album to score a nod in the album of the year category. (The award went to Harry Styles’ Harry’s House.) It wasn’t until after the ceremony that he began to question his loss, he explained. “I didn’t even feel like [album of the year] had been stolen from me until the media started saying [it] and I saw that everybody thought I deserved the prize and everybody thought it was a robbery. … That’s when they kind of convinced me and I said, ‘Well, yes, it was a robbery then.’”
While Bad Bunny is reluctant to get into specific details about a new album, which according to the interview is slated to release sometime in the fall, he’s a bit more vocal about not having to clear anything up with anyone about his outings with model Jenner, with whom he’s been linked to romantically.
“They don’t know how you feel, they don’t know how you live, they don’t know anything, and I really don’t want them to know,” he said. “I’m not really interested in clarifying anything because I have no commitment to clarify anything to anyone. I am clear and my friend Jomar … and my mother is clear. They are the only ones to whom I have to clarify anything.”
Bunny has reportedly been dating Jenner since early this year. The two were spotted in April while at Coachella together, and in May, they sat courtside at a Lakers game, wearing matching snakeskin boots. They still haven’t officially confirmed their romance.
“There are people who say that artists have to put up with it,” he added. “I don’t have to accept anything and everything because I wanted to be an artist. At the end of the day, you listen to me because you want to. I don’t force you to.”
