Nicky Jam has now joined a cohort of reggaetoneros pledging their support for Donald Trump — even if the former president doesn’t seem to know who he is. On Friday night, the Puerto Rican musician joined Trump onstage in Las Vegas to endorse him, but the former president misgendered him in his introduction.
“Do you know Nicky? She’s hot. Where’s Nicky?” Trump said from the stage while looking offstage to find him. Jam then arrived at the podium as Trump corrected his mistake: “Oh, look, I’m glad he came up.”
The Puerto Rican singer joined Trump while wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat as he made a short speech about his endorsement.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President. People that come from where I come from, they don’t meet the president. So I’m lucky,” said Jam. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president.”
On Saturday morning, as the clip of Trump’s confusion went viral, Jam shared a meme on Instagram playing into the fact that the former president thought he was a woman: “Nicky jam la potra la bichota,” he joked, using the slang female reggaeton singers Ivy Queen and Karol G use to describe themselves.
By Sunday evening, Nicky had deleted the post — which received support from numerous Latin musicians, including Justin Quiles, Randy from Jowell y Randy, Sech, and J Balvin, who commented, “Champion” — from his Instagram.
Mexican rock band Maná issued a statement Sunday morning saying that the band “didn’t work with racists” as they decided to pull their song with Nicky Jam over his endorsement of Trump.
Some fans of Jam shared their discontent with the reggaeton star since he voiced his support for DACA recipients in 2018 after Trump threatened to pull the executive action that protected folks who came to the U.S. without papers as minors. “They are hard-working people who bring so much to the table for this country. They deserve so much,” he said in a video with Spotify at the time.
“I’m in the video below where I shared w/ @NickyJamPR the fears that thousands of #DREAMers w/ #DACA like myself had about our protections taken away by Trump,” wrote Adrian Escárate of the National Immigration Law Center on X. “Fast forward to now where it seems Nicky Jam used me to promote his music + sellout our community. Thanks for nothing.”
The “X” musician’s endorsement of Trump comes just days after Puerto Rican stars Anuel AA and Justin Quiles joined the former president in Pennsylvania, offering their support for the MAGA cause. Again, it was clear Trump had no clue who they were.
“Do you know who the hell they are? Come up here fast, fellas, come on, because I don’t think these people know who the hell you are,” Trump said on stage. “But it’s good for the Puerto Rican vote. Every Puerto Rican is going to vote for Trump right now. We’ll take it.”
This story was updated on Sept. 15 at 11:35 p.m. ET to mention that Jam deleted his post about Trump from his Instagram after Maná pulled their collaboration together from streaming services.
