A flood of Kennedy Center cancellations are ruining Ric Grenell’s holiday season. Artists are pulling out of performances to protest Trump renaming the Center after himself.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/a-flood-of-kennedy-center-cancellations-are-ruining-ric-grenells-holiday-season/
46 Comments
Don’t just protest now. Refuse to perform there until after Trumps presidency.
As they should.
What is with this pedo and naming everything after himself?
It won’t be long before Trump screams about these artists being unknown, radical leftists hellbent on destroying America.
>The holiday cancellations in particular hit the Kennedy Center hard, because the season is “highly lucrative.” The bottom line already took a hit when Grenell signed off on a deal to let FIFA, the governing body for international soccer, [use the Center free of charge over the holidays](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/us/politics/democrats-kennedy-center-investigate.html) for its World Cup planning. That decision led to multiple holiday performances being cancelled or rescheduled.
>In response to the cancellation of the Christmas Eve concert, [Grenell threatened to sue Redd for $1 million](https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-kennedy-center-plans-sue-jazz-musician-canceled/story?id=128761195), calling that Redd’s decision “classic intolerance” while lauding “President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure.”
>The newest cancellations led Grenell to resort to trashing the artists.
>“The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” [Grenell said on X. ](https://x.com/RichardGrenell/status/2005844962769064196?s=20)“Their actions prove that the previous team was more concerned about booking far left political activists rather than artists willing to perform for everyone regardless of their political beliefs.”
>The Kennedy Center [has been reeling with empty seats and plummeting revenue](https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/11/empty-seats-plummeting-sales-have-plagued-kennedy-center-since-trumps-takeover-its-dire/) ever since Trump fired the previous board and named himself the new chairman. Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate are investigating Grenell for [“an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.”](https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/11/ric-grenell-is-under-senate-investigation-for-corrupt-dealings-at-the-kennedy-center/)
How gay people like Scott Bessent & Ric Grenell could work for Trump and Christian nationalists is beyond me. Christian nationalists literally want to throw them in the pyre with the rest of us “infidels”.
The Log Cabin Republicans is the most senseless organization of all. It’s literally zebras voting for lions.
good. And if those acts take a financial hit from this, there’s always GoFundMe (-hint hint nudge nudge-)
They’ll be hosting a Kid Rock and Snoop concert soon enough
kid rock is just waiting by his phone.
As they should.
Grenell is trying so hard to be the victim of “far left” politics and a conspiracy by artists refusing to entertain “conservative audiences.” Just like every other Conservative in the US, he’s positive everyone else is the problem and incapable of self reflection.
Good important not to support any pro fascist company, event, or artists
Grenell can’t just sue an artist for $1 million dollars for cancelling a performance. Every Kennedy Center performance contract would have a provision allowing a performer to cancel a performance. There would be some monetary damage provision but it certainly wouldn’t be $1 million dollars. Grenell is like the Orange Turd and all his sycophants. They pull empty threats out of their asses to try to impress their MAGAT sheep. Sadly, their heads are so far up the Turd’s ass themselves that they believe their threats are actually real.
Upton Sinclair said something like “It is difficult to make someone understand something when their livelihood depends on their not understanding it.” The national Republicans, way too many national Democrats, and way too many journalists, appear to treat that truism as their credo. Artists have always been among the most courageous people, and their cancellations demonstrate that not everyone is willing to spinelessly kowtow to a raging narcissist just to get a paycheck.
Please donate to the companies that have cancelled. They need all the funding they can get. Some like Dova Dance operate on a shoe string budget. [https://dovadance.org/](https://dovadance.org/) Let’s stand with those who stand with all of us against this regime.
Fascists get control of the press and then the arts. That’s what Hitler did, that’s what Trump is doing. As a theatre artist (costume designer) I’m sickened by this shit.
He should get all his MAGA supporting musicians to fill those seats…. Oh wait….
Erica Kirk is gonna end up with a resident show there like she’s Penn and Teller at the Rio
The real Trump Derangement Syndrome belongs to those who believe that Trump is anything other than a malignant narcissist and madman.
Is it just me? I’m starting to America might be the bad guys.
I wish Fred Trump would have pulled out.
They had more balls than most punks. There was a large traveling punk fest this past year, Punk In The Park. The promoter donated about 1k in various amounts to Trump/Win Red under his name/business name. Other than Dropkick Murphys who said fuck that and a couple smaller bands, all those bands shut up and took a paycheck and made the promoter more money to donate to Trump.
With Trump everything has to be about him. It’s filthy and shameful.
Trump even talking to kids about Christmas, has to make it about Trump. And I would not go anywhere that had the name Trump forced on the building. Get more Kid Rock to play there. Enjoy.
Go for them!!!
Cancellations of parties because of these goons happened where I work part-time. All the employees of that venue are getting screwed because of Trump. No tips on taxes doesn’t matter when no one goes out due to these awful people.
I’m sure the GOP can get Hulk Hogan and Charlie Kirk can fill their slot. Maybe they will host a kids beauty pageant. We know how much they like kids.
Good. Let them fester amongst themselves with Kid Rock or Minaj, or maybe a rally by Erika Kirk. Deranged indeed.
Good.
Spirit Halloween is interested in booking.
Everything Trump touches dies….
The most potent protest is with dollars.
If this continues, patrons will simply stop buying tickets and stop making donations. The Center will fail and Trump will have ruined another business with his meddling.
Nicki Minaj is probably free?
I wish some actors would do the same, who work for fascist networks.
The strange belief that an artist has to perform for *everybody* is only held by people with stranger beliefs. Artists have free will, which is a concept conservatives abhor.
Artist bailing on the Kennedy Center after Trump slapped his name on the building, Christmas Eve jazz, New Year’s Eve shows, dance troupes, all gone. It’s not a random string of no show, it’s a boycott in action.
Good..perhap bankruptcy and staff layoffs might spawn a neuron to connect with another in someones brain that adding trump to your name is akin to smearing dog feces on the wall…
Just give Kelsey Grammar a residency and be done with it /s. (But seriously, good on every artist who doesn’t bend the knee to that enema-induced shart goblin.)
Trump to declare all music not glorifying MAGA to be domestic terrorism.
I’d like to offer my bands participation, we are formerly known as the “Fuck Trump Quartet”
Trump ruins everything.
Well if it isn’t the consequences of their own actions.
*illegally renaming.
The Kennedy Center is named by statute. It takes an act of congress to change it. Just like the Department of Defense.
Who names places after themselves? While alive? Personally?
It’s almost as if there was no “mandate” and instead the people aren’t letting Trump do whatever the fuck he wants with zero consequences. Like maybe less than 30% of the adult population wanted him to be POTUS again.
A good President would consider the needs and wants of ALL Americans, not just the ones that voted for him.
Because he sucks. History will record that he was a corrupt pedo who only cared about himself.
Lee Greenwood residency incoming
No one likes Ric Grenell. He’s an absolute shitstain