Donald Trump has a fond “Memory” of Cats star and LGBTQ+ ally Betty Buckley, but she certainly doesn’t return the love.
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Trump mused about Buckley during his first board meeting at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he also talked about honoring dead celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti, and Babe Ruth. He recently fired all of President Joe Biden’s appointees to the board and made himself chairman of it. The New York Times obtained a recording of Trump’s remarks at the meeting, which an attendee confirmed is authentic.
In a discussion of Broadway shows, Trump expressed his affection for productions from the 1980s, such as the long-running Cats, which opened in 1982. He recalled attending the musical’s opening night.
“So we’re sitting there and then all of a sudden the lights go on and you see these people moving so incredibly, like nobody can move except a professional dancer,” he said. “And anyway, then Betty Buckley gets up and sings ‘Cats.’ And the place went crazy.”
Note: There is no song from the production that is titled simply “Cats.” Buckley is most famed for singing the show-stopping number “Memory.”
“Is Betty Buckley still alive?” he continued. She is, by the way. “She had the best voice,” he said. “Of all the great voices and stars, bigger stars than her, she had the best voice.”
Buckley doesn’t think so highly of Trump. During his first term, in a 2019 interview with The Advocate, she talked about ending her friendships with Trump supporters.
When she was at a friend’s house at Thanksgiving, she recalled, “They set this mug, this ‘Drumpf’ mug — I won’t even say his name — at my place at this beautifully decorated house in this beautiful, appointed Thanksgiving feast, gorgeous table. It was this ugly MAGA mug,” she said. “I was like, are you kidding me? I just pushed it aside and put it somewhere else and sat down and pretended that nothing happened. And they were all watching me, like I was some kind of alien creature that they had never seen before.”
“Never again,” she added. “I feel bad about that, because I love these people. I still love them, but I can’t, I just can’t.”
Regarding other Broadway musicals from the ’80s, Trump asked board members if The Phantom of the Opera or Les Misérableswas better. They seemed to agree on Phantom. Les Misérables, it should be noted,deals in part with oppressed people rising up against tyranny.
Trump further discussed potential recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an event that is televised every year, and he proposed himself as the host because he is “the king of ratings.” In addition to the dead celebs, he mentioned honoring Steve Wynn, a casino owner who has donated to Republican candidates and whose wife, Andrea, was appointed to the Kennedy Center board by Trump. The Kennedy Center Honors event has always recognized people from show business, but Trump said it could be opened up to athletes, politicians, and business owners. The event has been honoring “radical left lunatics,” he said.
At least one of the dead celebrities probably wouldn’t want to be honored by Trump. “Pavarotti, who died in 2007, had already been honored by the Kennedy Center in 2001; in 2016 his heirs asked Mr. Trump to stop playing his recordings at campaign rallies,” the Times reports.
While talking about Cats, Trump seemed to want to make sure no one thought he had gay leanings. “I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous,” he said. “They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas and women from Broadway. And men.” Of the men, he said, “I didn’t find those particular bodies as attractive, to be honest.”
Buckley, who has a gay brother, TV director Norman Buckley, offered some words about the first Trump administration in her Advocate interview that resonate today. “It’s like peeling a scab off and finding the infection that’s underneath,” she said. “And so bringing it to the light has to have some merit. Down the road, we’ve really got to rally and pull together all of us who are like-minded and believe in one another. We have to stand together against such cruelty.”
