Jennifer Holliday reverses on inaugural
PASADENA, CALIF. — Broadway star Jennifer Holliday has backed out as a performer at this week’s presidential inaugural following protests from her gay and black fans, further dimming the event’s already low celebrity wattage.
Holliday, best known for her Tony-winning role in Broadway’s “Dreamgirls,” said in an interview Saturday that she hadn’t considered that singing at a Thursday concert at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial would be interpreted as a statement of support for President-elect Donald Trump.
She decided to withdraw at 3 a.m. after reading commentary about how her participation was being seen. She apologized for a lack of judgment.
“It just really hit home for me,” she said. “The gay community has been a big part of my life and my career. I feel there really wouldn’t be a Jennifer Holliday or a ‘Dreamgirls’ in the 21st Century without them. I needed to at least hear them out and learn why it would be such a great disappointment for them.”
Several prominent enter- tainers have declined to perform at Trump inaugural festivities. Country star Toby Keith, singer Jackie Evancho, the rock band 3 Doors Down and actor Jon Voight are in the lineup Thursday.
Holliday said it was painful to read messages that included rac ial epithets, insults such as “Uncle Tom” and people wishing that she were dead “just for singing a song.” She had been scheduled to sing the Stephen Foster song “Hard Times Come Again No More.”
“I had no idea it would be interpreted as a political statement,” she said. “That’s my fault for not paying attention to what the climate is like in the country right now.”
She c ited an ar ticle by Kevin Fallon in The Daily Beast, which explained why Holliday ’s role as Effie in “Dreamgirls” made her an icon in the gay and lesbian community during the ini- tial AIDS outbreak in the 1980s. In that context, learning Holliday was performing at the inaugural “feels like a betrayal,” Fallon wrote. “It is heartbreaking.”
Holliday said she wasn’t concerned about a social media backlash from Trump supporters, or the president-elect himself, following her withdrawal. It couldn’t be worse than what she had already read from her supporters, she said.
President Barack Obama’s inaugurations attracted top names such as Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and others, in sharp contrast to those Trump has gathered. But Trump has insisted that’s how he wants it, saying the festivities should be about the people, not the A list. Trump’s team has made the concert available to air at no cost but no network has said it would do so.