Kennedy Center Hemorrhaging Artists Over Trump Name Change, Threatens Million Dollar Lawsuit
WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center keeps losing performers and threatening lawsuits and generally doing whatever the opposite of good PR would be.
Jazz group the Cookers pulled out of their New Years Eve shows. Days before they were supposed to play. Twice. CNN got a statement from them about how jazz was born from struggle and freedom of thought and expression. Their drummer Billy Hart told the New York Times the name change “evidently” played a role.
Folk singer Kristy Lee cancelled her January show. Dance company Doug Varone and Dancers backed out of April performances. Lost 40 grand doing it apparently.
And NPR reported the Kennedy Centers president Richard Grenell is threatening to sue jazz musician Chuck Redd for a million dollars because he cancelled his Christmas Eve concert.
A million dollars. For backing out of a Christmas Eve jazz show. Because you object to the president putting his name on a building Congress designated as a memorial to JFK in 1964.
Grenell called all the cancellations “a form of derangement syndrome.” Said the artists were “far left political activists” booked by previous leadership. The centers spokesperson said any artist cancelling over political differences is “selfish intolerant” and has “failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist to perform for all people.”
Thats… one way to respond to criticism I guess.
The boards hand picked by Trump voted earlier this month to rename the place “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Workers slapped his name on the exterior the next day. Quick turnaround for government work honestly.
Democratic Rep Joyce Beatty filed a lawsuit Monday saying you cant just rename a Congressional memorial without an act of Congress. She claims she was prevented from participating in the board meeting where the vote happened. That case could take awhile to work through.
Meanwhile Hamilton cancelled its whole 2026 run back in March. Producer Jeffrey Seller wrote that the Kennedy Center “was not created in this spirit” and they werent going to be part of it while its the Trump Kennedy Center. Issa Rae backed out. Rhiannon Giddens moved her concert elsewhere.
The Kennedy Center Honors broadcast drew its lowest audience ever this year. 2.65 million viewers down from 4.1 million last year.
Some performers are still honoring their commitments. Several told reporters anonymously they feel conflicted. One said “Its no longer a focus on the arts, and its very sad.”
The White House said the board renamed the place because of “the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.” Pointing to restoration and renovation stuff Trump talked about at the Honors dinner.
Whether a national cultural institution can stay nonpartisan while named after a sitting president. Thats the question nobody seems to have a good answer for.
The lawsuits will sort some of this out eventually. In the meantime the Kennedy Center seems determined to fight with every artist who has a problem. Bold strategy.
