Donald Trump has presented this year’s Kennedy Center honourees with their medals. Watch the moment below.
The list of honorees selected by the Trump administration this year included KISS, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, country star George Strait and stage and sitcom actor Michael Crawford.
The prize is awarded to figures in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture.
Trump personally presented the honorees with their awards yesterday (December 6) during a ceremony at the Oval Office, hailing them as “perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class” ever assembled.
The president said they are a group of “incredible people” who represent the “very best in American arts and culture” and that “I know most of them and I’ve been a fan of all of them.”
“This is a group of icons whose work and accomplishments have inspired, uplifted and unified millions and millions of Americans,” he told the audience. “This is perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class of Kennedy Center Honorees ever assembled.”
Trump ignored the Kennedy Center and its premier awards program during his first term as president. But the Republican has instituted a series of changes since returning to office in January, most notably ousting its board of trustees and replacing them with GOP supporters who voted him in as chairman of the board.
Strait was first to receive his medal, and was wearing a cowboy hat. When he began to remove it, Trump said, “If you want to leave it on, you can. I think we can get it through,” but Strait took it off.
The president went on to call Crawford a “great star of Broadway”, and Gaynor “the disco queen”, adding, “Nobody did it like Gloria Gaynor.”
He also called Stallone a “wonderful” and “spectacular” person, “one of the true, great movie stars”, and “one of the great legends.”
KISS, he said, are an “incredible rock band” and “among the greatest artists, actors and performers of their generation. The greatest that we’ve seen.”
“We can hardly imagine the country music phenomena without its king of country, or American disco without its first lady, or Broadway without its phantom – and that was a phantom, let me tell you – or rock and roll without its hottest band in the world, and that’s what they are, or Hollywood without one of its greatest visionaries,” he said.
“Each of you has made an indelible mark on American life and together you have defined entire genres and set new standards for the performing arts.”
In 2021, KISS frontman Paul Stanley described Trump as “abhorrent” and “a true danger to our democracy”, but back in August, the singer spoke of his pride in accepting the honour.
Bassist Gene Simmons also responded to the honour, writing: “KISS is the embodiment of the American dream. We are deeply honored to receive the Kennedy Center Honor”.
Drummer Peter Criss added: “I feel so blessed. This is the greatest honour of our career”. Founding guitarist Ace Frehley also described it as “a dream come true that I never thought would materialize”.
Unlike Stanley, Frehley has been supportive of Trump in the past. “I will say I’m a Trump supporter,” he said in 2020. “All the politicians have had skeletons in the closet. But I think Trump is the strongest leader that we’ve got on the table.”
Stanley has also criticised members of the Republican Party in the past for not speaking out against Trump after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 presidential election. “Their silence is a choice and not sharing their opinion is a coward’s way out,” he said. “It feeds the mistrust that eats at the core of this country I love”.
Tom Cruise reportedly turned down an award at this year’s ceremony due to “scheduling conflicts”, according to The Washington Post, which cited current and former Kennedy Center employees on the condition of anonymity.
The Mission: Impossible star is yet to publicly comment on the report.
Last year, Francis Ford Coppola and the Grateful Dead were among the honourees.