She seems to primarily base the decision on the (non-threatening) reaction from her fans:
Traditionally, it’s not. You perform out of honor and respect for the presidency – both the man and the office. You may have a nonpartisan inclination to perform out of respect for the office itself and the nation. You may respect the person taking oath. But, historically, there’s no paycheck involved.
From a different article on Holliday:
It’s disingenuous to present this as “She backed out because of threats”. She backed out because she saw the disappointment from her fans and felt that the opinion of the LGBTQ and other communities was more important than performing for Trump.
The presidential inauguration is a Klan rally? President Obama will be attending the inauguration, right? Can’t picture him at a Klan rally.
According to her, she received death threats, racial slurs from other black people on social media and the LGBT community expressed disappointment. Even if the death threats weren’t Holliday’s biggest reason cancel, that apparently was the case for opera singer Andrea Bocelli.
So at least two performers that committed and then backed out received death threats. And, of course, immense backlash on social media.
According to “a source”. Which isn’t Bocelli and there were also “sources” saying it was due to general fan disapproval. So we have one singer who has said why she backed out but we like the death threat story better and another singer who hasn’t released a statement but there’s a convenient narrative to weave so let’s go with that :rolleyes:
This is aside from that fact that Trump was elected in early November, these stories came out a few days ago and Trump still has nothing lined up. That Trump wasn’t able to get anyone to commit in November or December or early January isn’t because of a story from three days ago.
I don’t understand your point. Death threats to inauguration performers isn’t a big deal? The Bocelli story is fake? If so, apologies for linking to it. It’s on a few other outlets.
Jennifer Holliday was never anything remotely close to a Trump supporter, but she was going to perform because she traditionally has sung at inaugurations and she thought it was time to move on. But backlash, whether it was the death threats, racial slurs or LGBT community, caused her to rethink that. Why would any other performer sign up for that, even if they do like Trump? It’s not worth whatever backlash or boycott comes your way.
You implied that it was a primary reason for performers not agreeing to be at the inauguration. Maybe I misunderstood you. My point is that this argument, if it was yours, is pretty flawed.
Sure, but there’s a big difference between “I won’t perform because my fans will be upset” and “I won’t perform because my fans will literally end my life”. The former seems to be the main driver, not the latter.
The side point is that it’s not as though we have a dozen performers dropping out because most performers had zero interest even before these stories broke. Using them as an excuse for why Trump couldn’t line up acts for over two months is pretty weak.
Speaking of, could John Ashcroft perform Let The Eagle Soar, just over and over again?
I’d pay good money not to have to watch that.
I know what you meant, but I don’t think having a President this awful–objectively and subjectively–is a good thing. It’s a bad thing.
I thought I heard Trump didn’t want Andrea Bocelli. Now the story is that Bocelli backed out because of death threats? How do I reconcile these stories?
He likes opera singers who can see.
I think it’s reasonable to say that X percentile of any letter to any famous person will be a death threat. If you’re not getting them, you’re just not famous enough.
I doubt that anyone canceled because of death threats. They’re just a good one to throw in there if you want the bonus excuse.
Or he thought he’s from Mexico.
Or he thought he was a woman.
It is obvious that they fear being blacklisted by their peers and lose social media followers, and maybe even get killed.
So’s playing for “brutal dictators”, but it doesn’t do much for your reputation.
If I were a famous musician, I wouldn’t play for trump, nor Putin, nor Idi Amin, or that pudgy dude in North Korea. And if, in the next four years I did something that got me the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I’d ask if they could just mail it to me.
Really famous people fear being killed as a normal job hazard.
True. Your career doesn’t depend on one gig.
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I find it very hard to have any respect for someone that show no respect to other people ! Trump only care about Donald Trump!