President Trump on Wednesday named country music star George Strait, actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, the rock band KISS and actor-singer Michael Crawford as the first group of Kennedy Center honorees under his leadership. He also announced that he would host the awards program in December.
Trump named himself the chairman in February after firing the center’s previous chairman and members of its board of trustees who, he said, “do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
He announced this year’s honorees in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning, in which he also teased a potential name change for the famed Washington, D.C., cultural institution.
“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” he wrote.
He also suggested in the post that the center, which he said had “fallen on hard times, physically,” would be “back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury” and “WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!”
From left: George Strait, Sylvester Stallone and Gloria Gaynor. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Strait to the Heart, Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for amfAR and Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
Historically, honorees have been picked by a bipartisan committee. In a press conference announcing this year’s group, Trump said he was “about 98% involved” in the selection process and that he “turned down plenty” of candidates for being “too woke.”
Trump insisted that he initially did not want to host the awards later this year, but was convinced to do it by other members of the center’s leadership.
“I said, ‘I am the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’” Trump said Wednesday, describing the interaction. He added that he believes that, with him as host, the show “will be quite successful.”
The Kennedy Center Honors were first established in 1978. Over the decades, stars representing a broad range of artistic disciplines have been named honorees. Presidents traditionally attended the annual ceremony, but Trump opted not to go to any of the events during his first term after certain honorees said they would not take part if he was in the audience.
Rather than keeping his distance as he did during his first four years in the White House, Trump has taken a much more active role in the center’s operations than any of his predecessors. Beyond naming himself chairman, he indicated that he would be involved in deciding which acts would be asked to perform there.
Several artists, including comedian Issa Rae, author Louise Penny and the cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton, canceled scheduled events at the center after Trump took over.
Musical artists make up the majority of this year’s honorees. Gaynor was the voice of one of the defining songs of the disco era “I Will Survive.” Strait is among the most prolific artists in country music history, with more than 30 albums that have achieved gold or platinum status. KISS — comprised of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss — deployed outrageous costumes and stage pyrotechnics to cement themselves as icons of arena rock. Crawford made a major impact on both stage and screen, particularly with his performance as the lead in The Phantom of the Opera. Stallone exploded onto the scene as the titular character in the 1976 classic Rocky before becoming a action-movie superstar.