The fallout from Donald Trump’s decision to illegally rename the Kennedy Center to give himself top billing continues to grow, creating an embarrassing situation for the president. As it turns out, artists don’t want their work associated with Trump, despite legal threats from Ric Grenell, the president’s openly gay factotum who heads the center.

On Monday, just days before their scheduled New Year’s Eve concerts, the Cookers, a highly regarded jazz group, announced that they were cancelling their appearance at the Kennedy Center.

“With deep regret, we must share that we are unable to perform as planned on New Year’s Eve,” the group said in a statement, explaining that the decision came together very quickly. “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.” The Cookers said that their decision was in line with what jazz is about.

“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” their statement said.

While the statement didn’t directly refer to the renaming, drummer Billy Hart told The New York Times that the decision was “evidently” because of it.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

As it turns out, the Cookers are hardly alone in that decision. Last week’s Christmas Eve concert was canceled at the last minute for the same reason. Long-time host Chuck Redd, another giant in the world of jazz, said that Trump renaming the Center was the last straw.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told the Associated Press.

Kristy Lee, a folk singer from Alabama, announced last week that she was cancelling her January concert because of the Center renaming.

“When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else’s ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night,” she wrote on Instagram. “America didn’t get built by branding. It got built by people showing up and doing the work. And the folks who carry it don’t need their name on it, they just show up. That’s all I’m doing here.
I’m showing up.”

Other artists are piling on as well. Doug Varone and Dancers, who were scheduled to appear at the Kennedy Center next April, announced Monday that they were cancelling their appearance as well. “We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” Varone said.

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 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, 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. “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 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.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.