Thursday, June 25, 2026

Kennedy Center Dumps Richard Grenell as Chief After He Destroys the Place, Trump Installs New Staff

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“Tricky Dick” Richard Grenell is OUT at the Kennedy Center.

After just about burning the place to the ground, Grenell has essentially been fired as head of the facility by Donald Trump.

Thanks to Grenell, ticket sales plummeted, performers and artists boycotted and cancelled shows, and soon the Kennedy Center will shut down for two years.

Grenell’s run is a total failure.

In his place comes one Matt Floca, previously director of facilities. Floca is not artistic director, because the renamed UGH Trump Kennedy Center won’t have shows for two years. Floca is in charge of finding slabs of marble and the right fake gold baubles that please Trump.

The news breaks as the Washington Opera Company has exited the Kennedy Center and started performances nearby. The National Symphony Orchestra is going to do the same.

Trump should put Grenell in charge of MAGA now. That’s one way to kill off this heinous group off quickly. Rarely has a presidential appointee been so clueless and tone deaf about his job.

Next up: the courts will have to rule against the planned demolition of the Kennedy Center before it becomes a debacle similar to the White House.

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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.

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