The Artists Who Said No To Trump’s Inauguration

And one who said 'Yes'...

Thankfully the majority of our pinnacle artists maintain enough common sense to decline Donald J. Trump’s offer to perform at his inauguration – whether that’s down to their own political views, or the fact that they don’t want to be hated by the public.

And although we may have handed over 3 Doors Down (such as they are) to Trump, he hasn’t grabbed hold of some of our favourites.

So here are the artists still maintaining their morale…

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Elton John
The world-renowned ‘Candle In The Wind’ singer has performed at many a memorable moment, including Princess Diana’s funeral, but he quickly turned down the event. Despite Trump, supposedly, being pro-gay rights, Elton will not be performing at the event – as his publicist reiterated in an email to Antony Scaramucci, a member of the presidential transitioning team.

Kiss According to TMZ, the news that Kiss had declined the offer to perform at the ceremony was broken by Gene Simmons’ wife, Shannon Tweed. And although the bassist admits to “warm feelings” for the President-Elect, apparently a family divide caused the answer to immediately reside on ‘no’. God bless family feuds.

Charlotte Church
Classical pop-prodigy Jackie Evancho agreed to perform at the inauguration, and this acceptance seemingly prompted a trans-Atlantic exchange. Church simply took to Twitter to report that: ”@realDonaldTrump Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration, a simple Internet search would show I think you're a tyrant. Bye”.

Moby
Another to take to social media, on Instagram the DJ said: “I was just asked by a booking agent if I would consider djing at one of the inaugural balls for #trump… Hahahahaha, wait, Hahahaha, really?"

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Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake
Despite having not formerly RSVP’ed to her invite, it’s clear that as one of Hillary Clinton’s top celebrity surrogates throughout the election, Katy Perry won’t be betraying her queen anytime soon. And we can add Justin Timberlake into the strongly-believed “no” pile, considering he hosted a Hilary Clinton fundraiser at his own home.

Kanye West
This was a worrying one. We’ve all seen the shocking betrayal that Yeezy presented us with when he was pictured with Trump in an all-too friendly manner. However the chairman of the inaugural committee, Tom Barrack, has confirmed that although “Donald is a great admirer of Kanye, as we are all, but he is not performing at inauguration.” Guess Yeezy and Trump fans will just have to fantasize over the ‘Famous’ video for the meantime.

Celine Dion
Trump’s heart will just have to go on, after being declined by the singer.

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R. Kelly
The R&B performer has also declined via Twitter: “Despite the rumors circulating online, R. Kelly will not be performing at this year’s inauguration ceremony.”

Jennifer Holliday
Despite having previously confirmed her appearance at the ceremony, Holliday realised that in fact, no, she didn’t want to perform. In an open letter she said: “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."

Andrea Bocelli
Performing at some of 2016’s biggest events, including Leicester winning the Premiership, it was obvious that Trump would want to nab the classical singer as his own. However he reportedly declined due to fear of backlash from opponents of Donald Trump and his policies.

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Words: Mollie Mansfield

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