Trump to close Kennedy Center after takeover. Here’s everything we know

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., will close in July for two years, Donald Trump announced Sunday, saying the center needs renovations. But its reputation is what seems to need renovation, given that major acts have canceled and ticket sales have tanked since Trump took over the once-esteemed venue. Open since 1971, it had already undergone a renovation and expansion in 2019. Here’s what’s happened to the center in the past year.

Trump takes over

In February 2025, shortly after beginning his second term as president, Trump announced plans to replace the Kennedy Center’s board with loyalists and make himself chairman. He particularly objected to drag shows at the center, even though they were family-friendly.

“Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP,” he wrote on Truth Social. “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!”

Related: Hundreds of drag queens, activists & LGBTQ+ allies converge on Kennedy Center to protest Trump’s takeover

He fired 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. New Trump-appointed board members included Second Lady Usha Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.

Trump also fired Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter and appointed former ambassador Richard Grenell, one of his few gay supporters, as interim executive director.

Cancellations and criticism

Some cancellations came at the behest of the center’s management, but most happened because performers did not want to be associated with the Trump-run center. One of the ones canceled by center management was a Pride concert by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., with the National Symphony Orchestra.

In May, organizers of WorldPride, held in Washington, D.C., in 2025, decided to move several events from the Kennedy Center to another venue because the center had come to feel like a hostile space. The Capital Pride Alliance, in charge of WorldPride, announced that its Tapestry of Pride programming — originally scheduled to feature portions of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a reading room, and a family-friendly drag story time at the Kennedy Center — would instead be held at the WorldPride Welcome Center in downtown D.C.

Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a staging of Hamilton that was to take place at the center this year for the nation’s 250^th birthday. Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz ditched plans to host the Washington National Opera’s gala at the center, and the opera company moved its performances to George Washington University. Musician Issa Rae canceled a sold-out show at the Kennedy Center. Jazz artist Chuck Redd decided not to do his annual free Christmas Eve concert at the venue. Classical composer Philip Glass recently announced that the world premiere of his Lincoln symphony, scheduled for the center in June, would no longer take place there. The list goes on and on. Some of the cancellations came soon after Trump’s takeover, others after he added his name to the center in December.

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

The board voted for the renaming in December, making the venue the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or the Trump Kennedy Center for short. U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a Democrat who is an ex officio member of the board, has brought a legal challenge to the renaming since the original name was established through a law passed by Congress. That law bars the board from making the center a memorial to someone else and prohibits adding another person's name on the building.

Ticket sales had already plummeted. The Washington Post analyzed sales between September 3 and October 19, when roughly 43 percent of seats went unsold, compared with only 7 percent during the same period in 2024. Attendance at National Symphony Orchestra concerts is down 50 percent. Overall, tens of thousands of the center’s seats have been empty in the past year.

Viewership of the Kennedy Center Honors also took a hit. Trump made himself the host of the much-anticipated annual event, which was held December 7 and honored Sylvester Stallone, Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Crawford, and George Strait. The December 23 taped broadcast drew 4.1 million viewers, down 26 percent from 2024, according to the Nielsen ratings organization.

Renovation and reaction

Trump did not mention cancellations or ticket sales in announcing the renovation. He called the center “tired, broken, and dilapidated” in a post on Truth Social, adding that the reconstruction will make it “far better than it has ever been before” and saying he has secured funding. It will close July 4. Most of the staffers first heard about the closure through Trump’s announcement, according to several news outlets.

There’s plenty of skepticism out there about his justification for the closure. “Trump has run the Kennedy Center into the ground, failed artists and workers, and disgraced the living memorial to JFK,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine posted on Instagram. “They can’t sell tickets and can’t book performers, so to hide his utter failure he is shutting it down for ‘renovations.’ I call BULLSHIT, Mr. President. What do you really have planned? Congress demands a full and transparent accounting.”

“It’s not the decor that has driven performers away,” Democratic political consultant David Axelrod wrote on X. “It's the decorator.”

There were critiques from Republicans too. “Trump puts his name on it and kills the Kennedy Center,” Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia, wrote on X. “Instead of allowing the Center to return to its arts mission, he’d rather close it than admit his vanity project was rejected by the American people. More Trump failure and @RichardGrenell a disgrace too. If it’s closed, hope no $$ for him and his team. How does the Republican Congress allow one man destroy so many institutions? And what a disgrace this so called Trump ‘Board’ is.”

Several members of the Kennedy family weighed in. “Do not be distracted from what this Administration is actually trying to erase: our connection, our community, and our commitment to the rights of all,” Democrat Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of President Kennedy’s brother Robert and a former congressman, wrote on X.

“Trump can take the Kennedy Center for himself,” Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President Kennedy who is running for Congress from New York, posted on the platform. He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK. But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump, bring him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for."

Maria Shriver, President Kennedy’s niece, offered a translation of Trump’s announcement: “It has been brought to my attention that due to the name change (but nobody’s telling me it’s due to the name change), but it’s been brought to my attention that entertainers are canceling left and right, and I have determined that since the name change no one wants to perform there any longer. I’ve determined that due to this change in schedule, it’s best for me to close this center down and rebuild a new center that will bear my name, which will surely get everybody to stop talking about the fact that everybody’s canceling… right?”