Canceled shows and record lows: How Trump is killing the Kennedy Center

Trump takes over the Kennedy Center

Trump announced in February his plans to wipe out the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center and replace the chairman with himself. He said he was specifically motivated to overhaul the center so he could end the family-friendly drag shows it occasionally hosted.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump said on Truth Social. “We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”

“Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP," he continued. "The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

After firing several board members appointed by President Joe Biden — including former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, award-winning musician Jon Batiste, and billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein — Trump appointed former ambassador Richard Grenell, a die-hard MAGA ally and out gay man, as interim “executive director."

Kennedy Center bans drag and Pride

Following Trump's takeover, the Kennedy Center began scrubbing its calendar of any events connected to the LGBTQ+ community. Not only were drag shows canceled — the center also removed performances by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., and the National Symphony Orchestra.

The chorus confirmed in a statement in February that its unofficial WorldPride concert, “A Peacock Among Pigeons," had been canceled shortly after performance and ticketing information quietly disappeared from the center’s website.

“The piece was intended to be a part of the Kennedy Center’s Pride celebration, and we were very excited to be collaborating with the NSO as their guest chorus,” the chorus wrote. “We believe in the power of music to educate and uplift, to foster love, understanding, and community, and we regret that this opportunity has been taken away.”

WorldPride 2025 organizers also made the decision in May to relocate multiple events from the Kennedy Center to the WorldPride Welcome Center in downtown D.C., including its Tapestry of Pride programming, which featured portions of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a reading room, and a family-friendly drag story time.

Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos told The Advocate in February that the organization was anticipating it would no longer be welcome at the Kennedy Center under Trump, and it was "navigating identifying new locations just to be on the safe side."

Kennedy Center ticket sales plummet

By October, ticket sales at the center had plummeted. Over 43 percent of seats went unsold between September 3 and October 19, according to a report from The Washington Post, compared to only 7 percent during the same period in 2024.

The data showed that the Kennedy Center’s largest venues — the Opera House, Concert Hall, and Eisenhower Theater — were struggling across the board. Even high-profile events, such as The Sound of Music and National Symphony Orchestra programs, failed to fill the house, leaving tens of thousands of seats empty.

At the same time, other high-profile events that would have drawn crowds began falling through as artists pulled out. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda told Out, The Advocate’s sibling publication, that withdrawing the musical’s planned 2026 run at the center was “morally not complicated.”

"Well, in one sense, we were lucky in that we didn't have a contract in place, so there were no legal ramifications to us pulling out," Miranda said. "Morally, it was not complicated, because the Kennedy Center has historically been a bipartisan birthplace for the best of our nation's arts. Trump's administration politicized that when they fired the board and Trump named himself head of it."

"We were just not going to participate in that if we had the option not to, and I'm very thankful we have the option not to," he added. "It was a very easy decision for us to not participate in what that's becoming."

Trump renames the Kennedy Center

The White House claimed in December that the Kennedy Center's board voted unanimously to change its name to the "Trump-Kennedy Center," something that only Congress has the authority to do. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, said afterwards that the change was forced through as she was prevented from speaking.

“What you may hear is that there was a unanimous vote to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump center,” Beatty said in a video posted online. “Be clear, I was on that call, and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted.”

Members of the late President John F. Kennedy's family immediately voiced their disapproval. Maria Shriver, his niece, said in a post that the decision left her “speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief.” Former Congressman Joe Kennedy III maintained that the name change is illegal.

“The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” he wrote. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”

Grenell replied by mocking them. He wrote, "The place was literally falling apart and you didn’t help — at all. Where you been, Maria? You were completely silent while the building crumbled. Donald Trump had to step in and save it because you didn’t help. You should thank him."

Trump tanks Kennedy Center Honors ratings

While Grenell was claiming that Trump was saving it, the Center continued to experience its worst year in recent history. Trump announced that he would personally host the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, stating that he chose "98 percent” of the nominees and rejected several “woke” options. He also claimed that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles convinced him to host the awards, as it would supposedly lead to "better ratings."

“I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?" Trump said. "‘Sir, you’ll get much higher ratings.’ I said, I don’t care. I’m president of the United States. I won’t do it. They said, please."

The 48th Kennedy Center Honors telecast drew the smallest audience ever for the event, according to a report from Programming Insider. The broadcast received just 2.65 million viewers, marking a 35 percent decline from the 4.1 million viewers in 2024, which itself was one of the lowest rated shows in recent years.

Artists cancel shows at the Kennedy Center

In response to the Kennedy Center's name change, several artists canceled their performances. Jazz musician Chuck Redd called off his annual free Christmas Eve concert for the first in the more than 20 years since it began, directly citing the rebrand.

“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.

New York jazz group The Cookers canceled ita New Year's Eve performance just two days before it was scheduled. The group did not directly cite the name change in its statement but said that “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice."

“We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” the group wrote. “Our hope is that this moment will leave space for reflection, not resentment.”

Other artists have canceled their performances scheduled for later this year, including country singer Kristy Lee and New York-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers. Lee said that while “canceling shows hurts” as they “keep the lights on,” she felt that "losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck."

Grenell recently sent a letter to Redd threatening to sue him for canceling his free concert, demanding $1 million in damages. He called the musician's decision a "political stunt.”

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” Grenell wrote.

And somehow, 'South Park' gets involved

Whether or not renaming the center was legal, the Trump administration will not be able to rename its website anytime soon. As officials dealt with the backlash to the name change and the several canceled performances, Toby Morton, a former South Park writer, revealed that he had already purchased the website domains TrumpKennedyCenter.org and TrumpKennedyCenter.com.

Morton told The Washington Post that he bought the domains in August after predicting that Trump would try to name the Center after himself. He said, “As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, ‘Yep, that name’s going on the building.'"

The websites are still under construction, but already feature posts taking digs at the president, including one that suggests visitors “Ring in the New Year with a performance by The Epstein Dancers." Parts of the site's logo are also blacked out in reference to the heavily redacted Epstein files recently released by the Justice Department.

“Here, tradition is preserved, narratives are curated, and performances are elevated beyond mere art," the website states. "What is remembered matters. What is omitted matters more."