Singer Jennifer Holliday backs out of Trump inauguration concert
Tony-winning actress/singer Jennifer Holliday has pulled out of the lineup for Donald Trump's Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration, USA TODAY confirmed.
The move comes a day after Holliday's agent, Jeff Epstein, told USA TODAY via email that she verbally accepted an offer from the Trump inaugural committee. "We want to be clear that an offer does not constitute a contract," he noted.
On Friday evening, she defended her participation to the New York Times, saying, “I don’t have a dog in this fight," she said. "I’m just a singer, and it’s a welcome concert for the people on the Mall.”
The Dreamgirls star, whose signature song And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going has been lip-synced in countless drag shows, later had second thoughts after reading a Daily Beast essay that called her participation "heartbreaking to gay fans."
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After learning that the gay icon had signed on to perform at the Trump show, Daily Beast writer Kevin Fallon wrote: "There’s no separating the booking of any of these stars from the fact that performing at the inauguration — any inauguration, sure, but especially this one — is a political act. In the case of Holliday, it is an act that seems to defy everything her most passionate supporters stand for, and even issues she herself has supported throughout her career."
In an open letter addressed to her "beloved LGBT community" published Saturday by the Wrap.com and obtained by USA TODAY, Holliday declared: "I WILL NOT PERFORM FOR THE WELCOME CONCERT OR FOR ANY OF THE INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES!”
Holliday, who describes herself as a "neutral songbird" and has performed for four presidents, explained, "I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarized country. ... Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence."
She called her initial agreement to perform "a lapse of judgment," confessing she was “uneducated on the issues that affect every American at this crucial time in history" and apologizing "for causing such dismay and heartbreak to my fans.”
“Please know that I HEAR YOU and I feel your pain," she wrote. "The LGBT Community was mostly responsible for birthing my career and I am deeply indebted to you. … You have loved me faithfully and unconditionally and for so many years you provided me with work even though my star had long since faded.”
Trump appears largely neutral on LGBT issues, telling CBS' 60 Minutes that he is "fine" with marriage equality, noting, "It was settled in the Supreme Court. It's done." He has also appeared supportive of Caitlyn Jenner's transition, inviting the transgender former Olympian, who is Republican, to use the restrooms at Trump Tower when the bathroom bill controversy was raging in North Carolina.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence's actions while governor of Indiana, however, have raised concerns in the LGBT community. In 2015, the self-described "evangelical Catholic" signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. While the watered-down final bill did explicitly protect sexual orientation and gender identity, it managed to anger both social conservatives and liberals, and opened a Pandora's box of legal discrimination against LGBT people, leading tech companies to boycott the state.