Andrew Athias travelled eight hours across the United States to be part of the Super Bowl halftime show headlined by Bad Bunny. Little did he know that he would be sharing in the spotlight following the historic performance in which he played one of the pop star’s bushy background extras.

The 31-year-old made headlines after revealing Sunday night that he was one of the dancing grasses in the set that drew an estimated 128 million viewers, with the details of his experience at the sporting spectacle — which was contested by the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots — going viral on social media.

“We weren’t supposed to be famous, we weren’t supposed to be any part of this, it was supposed to be not about us. Now ironically we are the famous people,” Athias told Observer Online in an interview.

“If there’s a news station that exists, I have been on it since Sunday night,” he added about his new-found fame.

Athias, a content creator from Philadelphia, whose father is a native of Trench Town in Jamaica, had applied online to play the bushel of grass.

“It was literally ‘submit your your height, your measurements,’ there was like weird things they wanted us to measure like your belly button to the floor or your left elbow to your right chest … submit things like four full body pictures,” he recounted, noting “There was no video you had to submit or proof of you being a big Bad Bunny fan… it literally was just we’re looking for bodies to fit in these costumes.”

Screengrab of Andrew Athias’ interview with CNN after his participation in the Super Bowl halftime show.

He was among the 400 people selected to be part of the show from a whopping 40,000 applicants, and flew for eight hours from Philadelphia to Santa Clara in California two weeks in advance for rehearsals.

But there was a Non-Disclosure Agreement prohibiting him from sharing any details about his participation in the show.

“I had to tell my neighbour, ‘hey, can you watch my dog for two weeks?’ And then I told my family and friends,’ hey, I’m going to be kind of MIA for a little bit, because they confiscated our phones at practice,” he recounted.

He told Observer Online that some participants were unable to abide by the strict rules.

“People definitely got dropped out because they either realised they couldn’t commit to this or they broke the NDA and shared things on TikTok that they shouldn’t have or they had some incidents with the costume,” he said.

He said he was so excited about the opportunity that he was shocked that he was being paid for it, albeit at California minimum wage.

“I didn’t know we were getting paid until about the third rehearsal… They were like ‘some of your checks will be coming in next week’, and I was like ‘Wait, we are getting paid for this?’…. I think I made the right choice,” Athias said with a chuckle.

Recounting the big day, Athias said the participants arrived at the stadium about five hours before kickoff.

“We drove to a secret location, like almost 30 minutes away from the stadium, and we had to be bussed in because traffic was going to be insane.

“They gave us a box lunch and it took about two hours to get everybody grassed up and suited on. Because there’s 400 of us, so it takes some time to get everybody grasped up,” he said.

“I think it was like the beginning of the second quarter that we all started to kind of get up and make our way out towards the stadium and kind of wait outside the stadium to be lined in,” he continued. “And as we were there, you know, it’s not that we were anxious, but we’re just so excited and we don’t want to wait anymore.”

The rest is history, and Athias is grateful to have been part of the moment.

Regarding his so-called “15 minutes of fame”, Athias said, “There’s going to be a lot going on, my only thing now is how do I top this?

“I guess I now have to be in the Olympics and win a gold medal.”