President Trump is hosting the Kennedy Center Honors himself, perhaps (in part, at least) because literally no one else is left. Recent hosts of the program include Queen Latifah (2024) and Gloria Estefan (2023) — so Trump will fit right in, obviously.
Ben Folds, the piano virtuoso/pop musician, had been artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra; the Kennedy Center oversees the National Symphony Orchestra. In a February Instagram post, the singer-songwriter and former frontman of Ben Folds Five said, “Given the developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today I am resigning as artistic advisor to the NSO. Not for me.”
Those “developments” were Trump’s announcement that he would fire multiple board members at the Kennedy Center, including chairman David M. Rubenstein, and planned to install himself as chair; Trump was later elected to the position. TV super-producer Shonda Rhimes also resigned amid the shake-up.
In addition to Trump, the new board includes Susie Wiles, Dan Scavino, Allison Lutnick, Lynda Lomangino, Mindy Levine, Usha Vance, Pamela Gross, John Falconetti, Cheri Summerall, Sergio Gor, Emilia May Fanjul, Patricia Duggan and Dana Blumberg.
In a Zoom interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Folds called the situation “really rough.”
“My friends that I left behind there, they we were in very different positions (than me),” Folds said from his hotel room at a tour stop in Montana. “They’re kind of trapped in that environment. No one knows their name. But for me, it’s lending my name to help stand for, you know, some kind of North Korean vibe.
“That kind of regime uses you, you know?” he continued. “So then it would be like, ‘Oh, well, you know, Folds wants a whole big gut full of orange,’ like, ‘He loves this.’
To be clear: Folds does not love this. He does not love any of this — but maybe for a (slightly) different reason than you might think.
“It wasn’t the politics so much as it’s a partisan takeover, which is a very authoritarian thing to do,” Folds said. “You’re supposed to have a firewall between politics, the government, and the Arts Center.”
That firewall was, well, burned down six months ago.
Since then, Folds says, the administration has “run all [the donors] off.” There is a common misconception that the federal government foots the bill for these things; our taxes pay for something like six percent of the arts funding, Folds said, with the rest coming from donations.
“It’s pretty bad,” he summed up the situation.
We’ll say. But, buddy, we want you back. What would it take for the “Landed” singer to land back with the National Symphony Orchestra?
“The reason I was there is because it had a mission — or multiple missions. It was different than working at another venue,” Folds said. “The mission can’t be to further a political agenda.”
He was there to, through music, give “bus-fulls of kids” meaningful cultural experiences they wouldn’t otherwise have, Folds said.
“All kinds of kids need to look up on stage and see themselves just ruling on stage. Just to go, ‘God, I never saw someone that looked like me on stage, and they’re like the king of the room right now. This is amazing — I could go out to do that for a living,’” he continued. “That’s what it’s for. And to rage against that, that takes some fucking little balls, man.”
At least somebody’s “Still Fighting It.”
On Wednesday, the (new-look) Kennedy Center revealed its 2025 list of honorees, including Sylvester Stallone, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and the rock band Kiss, among others.
