President Donald Trump announced the recipients of the 48th Kennedy Center Honors on Wednesday — the first class of honorees since he took over the arts complex this year — and a major change to the ceremony: He’ll be the host.
Speaking from the center’s Hall of Nations, Trump revealed the 2025 honorees by unveiling five portraits draped in velvet. The group: glam metal band Kiss, Broadway and West End star Michael Crawford, country music legend George Strait, actor Sylvester Stallone and singer Gloria Gaynor.
Actor Tom Cruise was offered the honors but declined because of scheduling conflicts, according to several current and former Kennedy Center employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss event plans. A spokesperson for Cruise declined to comment.
Before naming the honorees, Trump said he always wanted the award himself but “was never able to get one.”
“I waited and waited and waited, and I said, ‘The hell with it, I’ll become chairman and I’ll give myself an honor,’” he said, drawing chuckles from a crowd that included Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and members of the White House staff. “... Next year, we’ll honor Trump, okay?”
The choices may surprise some Trump critics. When Trump took over the Kennedy Center, an overworked joke circulated on social media. Here is political analyst Larry Sabato’s version: “Can you imagine forthcoming Kennedy Center Honors for Lee Greenwood, The Village People, and Kid Rock? Inevitable with Trump as Chair. Prepare your stomach.”
It certainly seemed as if Trump had major plans in store for the honorees. At a board meeting in March, Trump said: “We’ll go slightly more conservative, if you don’t mind, with some of the people. There are people out there that would not be considered that are much bigger stars than the ones that were being honored.” He even suggested offering honors to deceased icons and widening the scope of possible recipients to include athletes, business luminaries and politicians.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Trump’s class of honorees is how comfortably it fits with those that came before it. A-list actor? Check. Aging rock band? Check. Broadway star? Check. (The Washington Post previously reported that the center was “seriously” considering Strait, Crawford and Kiss.)
Trump said he was “very involved” in selecting the 2025 honorees and turned down names he didn’t approve of. “I would say I was about 98 percent involved. They all went through me,” he said. “... I had a couple of wokesters. Now, we have great people. This is very different than it used to be, very different.”
Not all of the artists have supported Trump, including the face — that is, the tongue — of Kiss.
Bassist Gene Simmons, whom Trump fired during the first season of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” backed Trump during his first term — but soon changed his tune.
“Look what that gentleman did to this country and the polarization — got all the cockroaches to rise to the top,” Simmons told Spin of Trump in 2022. “Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it’s all out in the open because he allowed it.”
“I don’t think he’s a Republican or a Democrat,” Simmons added of the president. “He’s out for himself, any way you can get there. And in the last election, over 70 million people bought it hook, line and sinker.”
Simmons’s bandmate Paul Stanley appears to have had a more favorable view of Trump. Days after the 2024 election, Stanley wrote on X: “IT’S OVER. If your candidate lost, it’s time to learn from it, accept it and try to understand why. There will be no building bridges to those you don’t agree with by being condescending, insulting, talking AT them or removing yourself.”
Gaynor, a Grammy Award-winning singer from New Jersey, rose to fame during the disco era of the 1970s.
While she isn’t known to be political, her hit song “I Will Survive” has become an anthem for marginalized groups — particularly within the LGBTQ+ community — and was named to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2015.
If Trump’s personal tastes align with any of the picks, it would be Crawford. Trump is famously a fan of 1980s Broadway hits, particularly “The Phantom of the Opera,” the title role of which Crawford originated. Trump would often play songs from the musical at his rallies.
Stallone, though, has emerged as a prominent Trump booster. In November, the Rocky actor gave a warmup speech for Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where Stallone described him as the “second George Washington,” called him a “mythical character” and compared him to Rocky Balboa.
In January, as president-elect, Trump named Stallone — along with Mel Gibson and Jon Voight — as “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” and tasked them with “bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
Strait, meanwhile, is a country legend — a genre that soundtracks many red states — but he has long kept fairly mum on his political leanings.
The ceremony will take place Dec. 7 and will later be broadcast on CBS.
During the news conference, Trump spoke about an array of topics, including crime, his upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the landscape of D.C. “We’re going to make it so beautiful again,” he said of the city whose police he has placed under federal control. “... When you look at the parks where the grass is old, tired, exhausted. We’re going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses.”
He also made unsubstantiated claims that, since becoming chairman of the Kennedy Center, “we have completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution.”
“We ended the woke political programming, and we’re restoring the Kennedy Center as the premier venue for performing arts anywhere in the country,” Trump said. “Anywhere in the world.”
As of earlier this summer, subscriptions to the center’s programming were down from last year, and several artists have boycotted the center.
Trump said of the columns supporting the center, “When you see them the next time, they’ll be magnificent,” before praising the “bones” of the building.
Outside the center Wednesday, about a dozen demonstrators gathered with signs and bullhorns to protest Trump’s involvement in the arts. Since returning to office in January, the president has targeted prominent arts and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
There will be potential changes to the honors, according to the current and former employees. The center has contacted the jeweler Tiffany & Company about redesigning the medallions, which have traditionally depicted President John F. Kennedy on one side and the building on the other, with a rainbow-colored ribbon meant to represent different artistic skills and talents. The annual dinner at the State Department may be moved to the White House. The White House and Tiffany did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Done+Dusted, the production company that produced the past several Kennedy Center Honors (as well as recent Mark Twain Prizes for American Humor, the center’s other big televised event), pulled out of producing this year’s honors. Matthew Winer, the center’s internal executive producer of the honors, has resigned from the center, along with Emeline Carlisle, the producer and honoree manager.
Even in less tumultuous years, the Kennedy Center Honors are a complex, logistical undertaking. The show usually consists of 70 or more other artists celebrating the honorees. Last year, the 2½-hour show featured Queen Latifah, David Letterman, Robert De Niro, Dave Chappelle, Sheryl Crow, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese, many of whom are outspoken Trump critics.
With so many performers avoiding the center, who will be there on the actual night?
It might be where Lee Greenwood, the Village People and Kid Rock come in.
Comments