Trump's Sh*t Show!
*****NOTE: GET PAID UP FRONT OR YOU WON'T GET PAID AT ALL!
The Bloviating Pumpkin Head has put others out of business, told them they were honored to do business with him or been told 'Sue Me and you'll spend years in court!'
link.
Trump Inauguration 2017: A list of all the artists who have publicly refused to play
Judging by the extremely messy and disorganized lead-up, Donald Trump's inauguration will likely be a shit show, in every sense of the word.
As with many things about his presidential campaign, the planning process thus far has been a tangle of misdirection, false starts and headaches for Trump's staff. Just Thursday, the team lost another potential leading act: Céline Dion, after an inside source told the Wrap that Las Vegas hotelier Steve Wynn had tried and failed to secure her for the inauguration.
Dion is the latest in a long string of celebrities who would seemingly rather watch hell slowly freeze over from its outer circles than celebrate the president-elect's coming inauguration.
Here's a running list of every celebrity that has publicly declined the offer to perform.
Elton John
John was one of the first artists rumored to be performing, a rumor started by the Trump transition team's very own Anthony Scaramucci.
"This will be the first American president in U.S. history that enters the White House with a pro-gay-rights stance," Scaramucci told BBC. "Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall for the inauguration."
Straight-forward, declarative, there wasn't a single minced word in Scaramucci's statement. There wasn't any in John's publicist Fran Curtis' response in a statement to the New York Times: "Incorrect. He will NOT be performing."
Further thoughts on Trump from Elton John:
"I don't really want my music to be involved in anything to do with an American election campaign. I'm British. I've met Donald Trump, he was very nice to me, it's nothing personal, his political views are his own, mine are very different, I'm not a Republican in a million years. Why not ask Ted fucking Nugent? Or one of those fucking country stars? They'll do it for you."
— Guardian, February 7, 2016
Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks won't be Donald Trump's country savior either, a source revealed to the Wrap after TMZ cornered the star to ask if he'd been approached. He seemed open at the time: "It's always about serving," he said. "It's what you do." He's been notably apolitical throughout this election year, and as of now, it seems like he'll stay that way through January.
Idina Menzel
Menzel has had her own troubles with patriotic anthems before, and she's definitely not going to try again on Trump's behalf. In a conversation with Vanity Fair, Menzel commented on Trump's difficulty locking down a name to sing, saying: "It's karma, baby."
She continued, "I mean, look: All the artists in the world got up and tried to get our girl [Hillary Clinton] elected, and it still didn't happen, so we're all still trying to recover from that."
Ice T
After everything that Donald Trump's campaign has said about hip-hop and Black Lives Matter, why he would reach out to Ice T is impossible to know. But the rapper claims they did, or at least joked about what he would do if they did, on Twitter.
"I just got [called] to perform at the inauguration," he wrote. "I didn't pick up and blocked the number."
John Legend
The forever insightful John Legend offered an explanation for why Trump might be having such a difficult time securing talent for his inauguration in a conversation with BBC.
"Creative people tend to reject bigotry and hate," the R&B crooner, who previously campaigned in Ohio for Hillary Clinton, said. "We tend to be more liberal-minded. When we see somebody that's preaching division and hate and bigotry, it's unlikely he'll get a lot of creative people that want to be associated with him."
Further thoughts on Donald Trump from John Legend:
"I feel like it's dangerous for us to be complacent. It's dangerous for us to think that it couldn't happen to us like it happened to Germany in the '30s and '40s. Trump is saying Hitler-level things in public. The world and America have done some atrocious things in the past, and we could do it again if we had the wrong leadership and if people of conscience don't speak up."
— Hollywood Reporter roundtable
The Chainsmokers
Pop EDM duo The Chainsmokers were only drawn into the inauguration mess after New York Magazine reporter Brian Feldman jokingly tweetedthat they were. Their manager later clarified for the Wrap that claim was "false."
In that piece, Feldman also got a chance to clarify his tweet: "It was a joke about how they're a bad group."
Adam Lambert
Adam Lambert, was exceedingly delicate when publicly refusing to play the inauguration in conversation with BBC.
"I don't think I would take the money on that one," he said. "I don't think I'd be endorsing that. They might struggle."
Considering how much Lambert has campaigned for LGBTQ rights and the track record that Trump's current team has on actively trying to dismantle those rights, the civility is stunning.
David Foster
Canadian musician, producer and songwriter David Foster shared the above Instagram post on Dec. 17. The news outlet in question seems to be Page Six who ran a "scoop" the day before that he was organizing the whole performance.
The Dixie Chicks
In a conversation with the Wrap, the Dixie Chicks' manager, Simon Renshaw, not only declined that the group would perform, but seemed to answer for the collective industry's refusal, saying: "No one is prepared to normalize what is going on in the country right now."
He added an additional warning to the artists that do agree to play: "If anyone does do it, I hope that the check that they get is in the nine figures. Because it's probably the last check they're ever going to get."
Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe is a bit of special case. According to Vince Neil, they had actually already been invited to be a part of the celebration before the election had been decided. They were going through Secret Service, but after Trump's coup the story changed. "When the Republicans won," Vince Neil, the band's lead singer, said in a video shared by TMZ, "we were uninvited."
"I don't know who's playing Trump's party," he added. "But God bless 'em."
The 1975
Another odd departure from the norm, Matt Healy, lead singer of the rock outfit the 1975, said he'd be happy to play, under a few conditions that Trump's team would likely never accept.
"I'll do it if they give me cash up front," he told BBC. "Then watch what would happen. It would be a riot."
And in terms of cash, he'll need some serious riches changing hands. "Well, he's got gold seatbelts in his plane — so at least a million quid," Healy added.
Zara Larsson
"I would never do it," Swedish pop star Zara Larsson, told BBC during a conversation at the BBC Music Awards. "A lot of artists out there have been very pro-Hillary and anti-Donald. So I would never do it and most other smart people wouldn't do it."
Enough said, really.
Andrea Bocelli
At one point in early December, the keynote performance looked like itwas going to be Andrea Bocelli and America's Got Talent runner-upJackie Evancho duetting on the National Mall. Whatever truth once lay behind that announcement, Bocelli has since pulled out, after receiving an excessive amount of flack from his fan base, Page Six reported.
"Bocelli said there was no way he'd take the gig ... he was 'getting too much heat' and he said no," a source told the gossip column. Yet another source offered a slightly different account: "Trump suggested to Bocelli he not participate because of the backlash. It's sad people on the left kept him from performing on a historic day."
Either way, the hunt for an A-Lister continues with just under a month left before the big day.
No comments:
Post a Comment