(NCS) — What if there was a concert celebrating America’s 250th anniversary and not one of the artists confirmed up?
That’s one of many potentialities that Freedom 250, a public-private partnership created by the Trump administration, is dealing with after nearly all of the artists it booked to carry out at a marquee concert collection dropped out this week. The Commodores, Martina McBride, Morris Day & the Time, Poison frontman Bret Michaels, and rapper Young MC have all publicly distanced themselves from the string of performances scheduled to happen on the National Mall in Washington, DC, from June 25 by July 10 as a part of the Great American State Fair.
“I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” McBride, the nation star, wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday saying her resolution to not carry out.
Freedom 250 is a White House group launched by govt order to create Trump-driven alternate options to the occasions deliberate by the nonpartisan United States Semiquincentennial Commission, America250. The introduced concert lineup was closely tilted in direction of legacy acts like Morris Day and Vanilla Ice, and lots of of them share the identical reserving agent in Jeff Epstein of Universal Attractions. Epstein didn’t reply to repeat requests for remark.
All of the artists who’ve pulled out instructed they had been misled concerning the occasion’s political associations. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” Young MC said in a statement on Instagram. The rapper told Rolling Stone that the concert was a “bait-and-switch.”
Bret Michaels, who gained “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 and who has been complimentary of President Donald Trump up to now, cited a related difficulty. “Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of,” he wrote in a statement on Instagram on Friday. He additionally mentioned that he and his crew have acquired threats attributable to his potential participation within the occasion.
Not everybody has dropped out although. The “Ice Ice Baby” rapper Vanilla Ice, a vocal Trump supporter who has carried out at Mar-a-Lago a number of occasions, mentioned “I’m super honored to do this concert” in a TikTok video. “We don’t take anything too serious, man.” The rapper Flo Rida, of the blockbuster late aughts dance hit “Low,” has not made a assertion about whether or not he’ll nonetheless carry out.
The notorious pop duo Milli Vanilli, additionally introduced as a part of the lineup, is in a considerably unusual place. The group gained a finest new artist Grammy in 1990 earlier than it was revealed that frontmen Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus had not sung on the recordings credited to them. Jodie Rocco, one of many artists who supplied the true vocals for the group and who performs with different singers from the periods underneath the title “The Real Milli Vanilli,” told the AP that she was “shocked” that Milli Vanilli was a listed act. Pilatus died in 1998. Morvan, nevertheless, continues to be expected to perform on the Great American State Fair — together with his personal voice.
Freedom Williams, a rapper from the group C&C Music Factory, mentioned in an Instagram reel filmed from an odd angle — one commenter mentioned Williams seemed like he was sitting on the bathroom — that he “doesn’t f**k with Trump.” But he mentioned he was extra irritated by individuals who had been trying to “cancel” him over his efficiency, indicating that he’s planning to undergo with it. “The day I let you motherf**kers tell me what to do is the day I die.”
Williams left the unique group in the early 1990s but acquired the trademark for C&C Music Factory in 2005. Robert Clivillés — one of many “C’s” and a co-founder of the group — said Williams was “disguising himself as C&C Music Factory” and that Clivillés “was neither involved in, consulted regarding, nor have I endorsed the event.”
NCS reached out to representatives for the entire artists who had been slated to carry out. Many declined to remark or didn’t reply. Young MC reiterated that Freedom 250 had touted itself as a nonpartisan group when he initially agreed to carry out, and that he didn’t discover out about its affiliation with the Trump administration till later.
Rachel Reisner, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, mentioned the group “remains fully committed to delivering a once-in-a-lifetime experience that brings every corner of this country together on the National Mall.”
“We respect the rights of any artist to make their own decisions, and our doors remain open to any performer who wants to be part of honoring 250 years of American freedom, culture, and unity,” Reisner mentioned in a assertion. “There is far too much to celebrate about this great nation to let noise and division distract from the incredible moment ahead.”
The-NCS-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.