Artist to Pull Kennedy Center Show Over Trump Rename

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Daily Beast

Updated Dec. 21 2025 6:04PM EST
Published Dec. 21 2025 11:15AM EST


The Kennedy Center is already losing performers after Donald Trump slapped his name on the storied arts institution. Kristy Lee, a folk singer scheduled to perform at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 14, is in talks to cancel her appearance, her spokesperson told NOTUS, as other artists also move to sever ties with the venue.

One performer, who spoke to NOTUS on the condition of anonymity, said Trump’s renaming had left a permanent “stain” on the center. Another lamented what the Kennedy Center once represented—for artists and for the country at large. “I feel really badly for performers, not just for performers but for the people who work there,” they said.

“Kennedy Center is supposed to be a memorial, focusing on being nonpartisan. A place where people, it doesn’t matter what party they believe in, should be performing and experiencing the arts together regardless of what their party is. And it has not become that.”

Other artists who reluctantly chose to keep their scheduled performances at the center told NOTUS they are doing so as an act of resistance to the 79-year-old president.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/artist-to-pull-kennedy-center-show-over-trump-rename/

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Link to NOTUS article - Artists Are Threatening to Cancel Over Trump’s Kennedy Center Renaming

[qanda]

1. I loved going there. I refuse to return...

Until that pile of human excrement has nothing else to do with it.

[Callie1979]

2. A nice billionaire should lease a performance space nearby for 3 yrs

Hold all the shows we WOULD have had at the Kennedy Center there to embarrass that shitshow. Then win in '28 & remove the stain

[buzzycrumbhunger]

3. Wut?

"Other artists who reluctantly chose to keep their scheduled performances at the center told NOTUS they are doing so as an act of resistance to the 79-year-old president."

How is it "act of resistance" to perform there anyway?

[tanyev]

5. I mean, if there's any chance of them going on stage and publicly denouncing him,

it’s highly unlikely they would have been booked in the first place.

[pfitz59]

6. $$$$$$

Artists gotta eat. I think the staff and performers should sue. They agreed to waork at the 'Kennedy Center', not the 'Trump Dump'.

[NotHardly]

11. Don't give a F*CK, they are complicit

[NotHardly]

10. They're POS to perform there

Name and shame them

[Paladin]

4. GOOD.

The Kennedy Center ought to devolve into nothing more than an empty warehouse, until trump is gone and the honorable reputation of the Center is restored. Blessings on those performers who help make it happen.

[Martin68]

7. Any artist who accepts a Trump Center invitation should be boycotted.

[NotHardly]

9. THIS

[NotHardly]

8. Decline performances or be labeled as as*wipes

Cancel everything or get labeled as complicit as an Orange Trumpian Complicit arse licker.

[mdbl]

12. No one should perform there.

It's turned into an abomination.