Ric Grenell Throws Tantrum Over Canceled Kennedy Center Concert, Other Acts Quickly Cancel As Well To Spite Him
The real cancel culture.
In today’s edition of Sure you are, you rat-faced weasel dick, we honor feral Trump partisan Ric Grenell. Again.
Grenell’s award-winning performance on this occasion? A Chernobyl-level meltdown over musician Chuck Redd cancelling his annual Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center at the last minute in protest of Donald Trump renaming the building, currently sinking into cultural irrelevance under Grenell’s direction, after himself.
Redd’s cancellation led Grenell, in a spasm of bluster that would embarrass Douglas MacArthur, to threaten to sue Redd for $1 million for breach of contract. And also for hurting MAGA’s feelings, which is now illegal under the We Are Too Special, Mom Said So Act of 2025.
Grenell responded to Redd’s actions with a scathing letter in which he called the cancellation “classic intolerance” that “surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements of the left.” This was followed by the sort of sneering horseshit that had the entire nation of Germany rooting for Grenell to leave the country when he was ambassador there:
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that attendance for your Jazz Jam had been lagging considerably behind our other Christmas and holiday offerings, which have drawn strong crowds and enthusiastic response.
Well then, you shouldn’t be too sad about the cancellation.
The most avant-garde and well-regarded performers in your genre will still perform regularly, and unlike you, they’ll do it to sold out crowds regardless of their political leanings.
Meow! Grenell and other wingnuts have sneered repeatedly for almost a year that Donald Trump is finally making the Kennedy Center more inclusive for MAGA types. But was something stopping those same MAGA types from coming to Redd’s concert, which he has put on every Christmas Eve for 20 years, before now? Was there a “no wingnuts admitted to the ballet” rule under the old Kennedy Center regime? Was MAGA not allowed to buy tickets to Hamilton? Help us out, we’re very confused.
Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably.
The concert was free. Grenell is claiming that the Kennedy Center was hurt (dismally!) by lack of ticket sales to a free concert. What exactly has the cancellation cost? If no one was coming anyway, you’re not going to miss the parking fees or the concession sales.
This whole contretemps is a good reminder that Grenell is one of the more unpleasant human beings currently in public life. Which, considering the state of public life in America as we drag our exhausted butts into the Year of our Lord 2026, is really saying something.
Yeah? Then tell your boss to restore all the funding he cut to the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS if you and everyone else love the arts so much, asshole.
We suspect people are boycotting the Kennedy Center because Trump and Grenell came out of the barrel accusing the entire organization of being a bunch of radical leftist MAGA haters. We suspect they turned off the patrons they need by playing up their usual victim shtick, as if the Kennedy spent decades not scheduling UFC fights and Kid Rock concerts as a deliberate middle finger aimed at the Right.
In short, we suspect this is all happening because Ric Grenell in particular is a whiny fucking bitch, and people have better ways to spend their time than being insulted by him.
As if Grenell’s letter and tweets on the subject weren’t shirty enough, a Kennedy Center spokesman sent NPR a statement speaking about a cancelled jazz concert in apocalyptic terms:
Any artist cancelling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people.
Actually, using art to protest the actions of a repressive government and a narcissistic authoritarian is a basic duty, if not one of the highest callings for an artist. Redd cancelling his concert is probably the least confrontational protest he could make. Imagine if he’d gotten on stage on Christmas Eve and criticized Trump slapping his name on the Kennedy Center or dedicated the concert to all the undocumented immigrants the government has been kidnapping and their families that have been torn apart. Now that would have been political.
Redd is far from the first artist to cancel a performance at the Kennedy Center since Trump made Grenell its director and named himself the chairman of the board. Lin-Manuel Miranda cancelled a run of Hamilton that was supposed to take place in 2026. Issa Rae cancelled her sold-out show last March. Ben Folds resigned as artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra.
So Adele Stan’s suggestion at The New Republic that Grenell’s purpose in releasing this letter to Redd was to intimidate other artists who might be thinking of cancelling performances makes a lot of sense. But if that was the plan, it didn’t work.
On Monday, a jazz group called The Cookers cancelled two New Year’s Eve performances at the Center. A dance troupe from New York also announced it was cancelling two shows scheduled for April to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The Cookers did not give a reason other than to say that they would return to play when “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it.”
But Doug Varone, the head of the dance troupe Doug Varone and Dancers, said he was cancelling because “We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.” He added that the cancellations are “financially devastating but morally exhilarating.” Ouch.
The best part of all of this is that, as Stan noted, Grenell lobbied hard to be Secretary of State in Trump 2.0. That was the job he really wanted. Instead, it went to empty suit Marco Rubio. Running the Kennedy Center is a consolation prize, one which Trump very well might have given Grenell because in the president’s narrow, bigotry-addled brain, he assumed Grenell being gay meant he must love theater.
The problem isn’t a lack of love of theater, though. The problem is Grenell and Trump can’t help being dicks.
[NYT / New Republic]
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I saw this when it was released:
"Any artist cancelling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people."
But of course there is no such public duty. And if there was a public duty to perform one's art for all people, then there would be a public duty of ALL people to pay for the art. But I seem to remember a slight kerfuffle at paying Andres Serrano with public funds.
And speaking sotto voce of entartete Kunst, how can one claim that the artist (or "public artist" if one prefers) has a duty to perform for all people, yet also oppose drag artists providing dramatic readings of Fox in Socks for 3 year old library patrons?
Framing the artist as duty bound to the public with no reciprocal duty from the public to the artist is part and parcel of the age old conservative project, to create law that binds out groups without protecting them while protecting in groups without binding them.
Strip away the misleading rhetoric to examine what Grenell and the Trump regime *do* it becomes plain. Far from supporting the arts, they are declaring artists an out group they intend to bind.
For just about fucking forever, the right has been complaining that The Arts is just too full of filthy liberals. Ok, you guys have decided that now that you are “in charge” you can impose your politics on the rest of us. Don’t be too surprised that anybody with character decides not to comply.