From Ovations to Iconic Smiles, Photos Capture the Kennedy Center’s Salute to George Strait. ML
The last time President Donald Trump hosted a celebrity-packed show, someone usually got fired at the end of every episode.
At the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, everyone was a winner.
Trump hosted the annual awards show, the first since a shakeup at the Washington, D.C., performing arts center under his second administration.
Country music legend George Strait was among the honorees, along with Oscar-winning actor Sylvester Stallone, the rock band Kiss, Broadway star Michael Crawford and “I Will Survive” singer Gloria Gaynor.
They also were feted at a reception on Saturday at the White House, where they received the newly designed Kennedy Center Honors medallions — one of the most visible changes to the awards under Trump. The original medals were distinctive, with three gold bars on a rainbow-colored sash. The new medals, designed by Tiffany, more closely resemble an Olympic gold medal.
Like just about everything that Trump has done in the past year, the changes were divisive. But reports indicate that Sunday’s ceremony was pretty much business as usual, with the five honorees watching as artists they inspired paid tribute. The big change was the host: the president, who also serves as chairman of the Kennedy Center board.
The honorees, he said, were “among the greatest artists and actors, performers, musicians, singers, songwriters ever to walk the face of the Earth.”
Previous hosts of the ceremony have included talk-show host Stephen Colbert, singer Gloria Estefan, newsman Walter Cronkite and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the center’s namesake, former President John F. Kennedy.
Trump reportedly had a hand in choosing this year’s honorees, another break from the past. He’s a fan of “Phantom of the Opera” singer Crawford, and Stallone has praised him in the past.
In pre-recorded remarks at the ceremony, according to a report in The Washington Post, Trump said Strait’s songs “will always find a home wherever American patriots are found.”
But Strait, an undisputed country music superstar who was a leader of the genre’s neo-traditional movement in the ’80s and has racked up 60 No. 1 hits, surely would have been welcomed at the Kennedy Center Honors under any administration.
He’s not really known for making public pronouncements of any kind, let alone political endorsements. The short biography of Strait on the Kennedy Center site points to his fundraising for military and children’s causes.
On Sunday night, fellow Texan Miranda Lambert, Brooks & Dunn and Vince Gill paid tribute to Strait. Other celebrities taking part in the ceremony included Garth Brooks, the band Cheap Trick, Kelsey Grammer and singer Elle King.
During his first administration, Trump skipped the Kennedy Center Honors all four years after honoree Norman Lear said he would not attend a reception at the White House in 2017.
The Kennedy Center Honors will air Dec. 23 on CBS. Like the skillfully edited “The Apprentice,” the broadcast will be a shorter version of the celebration that took place Sunday night.
