Donald Trump has revealed the recipients of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, or as he’s dubbed it, “the GREAT NOMINEES for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER AWARDS.”
The list of honorees include country singer George Strait, hard rock legends KISS, Rocky star Sylvester Stallone, Broadway actor Michael Crawford, and disco legend Gloria Gaynor.
The 2025 Kennedy Center Honors will take place in December and air on CBS. Trump said that he was asked to host the event, apparently at the behest of the Kennedy Center’s board. “I didn’t want to do it, but they’re going to say I insisted—I did not insist,” Trump explained while announcing this year’s honorees. “But I think it will be quite successful. I used to host The Apprentice finales, and we did rather well with that.”
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Trump notably skipped attending the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term; however, during the first six months of his second term, he’s taken an interest in shaping America’s premiere cultural institution in his likeness. Weeks into his second term, he fired dozens of board members and appointed himself as chair, while also decreeing the Center to book “non-woke” programming. The building itself has also renovations aimed at restoring its “prestige and grandeur.”
With the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual award given to artists for their lifetime contributions to American Culture, Trump previously expressed a desire to to recognize candidates who are “slightly more Conservative,” adding that, “There are people out there that would not be considered that are much bigger stars than the ones that were [previously] being honored.”
Last year’s Kennedy Center Honors included Francis Ford Coppola, Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, and the Apollo Theater.
