Saturday, June 27, 2026

Kennedy Center Drama Continues as Trump Wants Opera House Renamed for Melania, Deadline for Honors Inductees Pending

Share

★ Make Showbiz411 your Preferred Source on Google

Donald Trump wants to end the opera component at the Kennedy Center.

He’s trying to push through a plan rename the opera house after First Lady Melania Trump.

If Congress votes for this, there is no doubt many subscribers will exit their plans.

Democrats who was still hanging tough at the Kennedy Center for the operas and symphonies simply will not pay money to sit in a theater named for the mostly absent Melania, a First Lady in name only who is considered complicit with her husband’s policies.

Maybe that’s Trump’s goal with this proposal. The Opera House can be turned into a cow palace for country music. Republicans are not known for their embrace of the finer arts.

Meantime, the wait is on to see who the new Kennedy Center board will offer as inductees for the Kennedy Center Honors. A gasp of horror is almost certain if all the inductees are right wing, Christian right, country performers, etc

Last year the announcement was made on July 18th. We are already past that point. Many artists who’ve been waiting for the Honors — like Liza Minnelli and Denzel Washington — may turn it down until Trump is out of office. One artist who could make the cut is Johnny Mathis, who’s almost 90 and seems to be among Trump’s favorites. Another could be conservative shill Lee Greenwood, whose single hit, “God Bless the USA,” is a MAGA theme song.

PS I’m told country star George Strait could be at the top of the Trump list.

Donate to Showbiz411.com

Showbiz411 is now in its 13th year of providing breaking and exclusive entertainment news. This is an independent site, unlike the many Hollywood trades that are owned by one company. To continue providing news that takes a fresh look at what's going on in movies, music, theater, etc, advertising is our basis. Reader donations would be greatly appreciated, too. They are just another facet of keeping fact based journalism alive.
Thank you


Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read more

In Other News