We love an embarrassing, public L for a fascist regime, don’t we folks? That’s what’s happening for the Donald Trump-backed “Great American State Fair” event meant to commemorate the United States’ 250th anniversary, as performers are dropping out of the D.C. event at a hilariously fast rate. The event was officially announced as a 16-day “national exposition” featuring performers like country star Martina McBride and Poison singer Bret Michaels, but days after the whole thing was announced, the original line-up of nine performers has dwindled down to three.
According to various statements, several of the performers who signed on to take part in the show claim to have been misled about the nature of the event, which they were told would be “non-partisan,” but now that it’s been publicly linked to Trump’s “Freedom 250” initiative, that’s clearly not the case. The event has been bleeding performers days after its announcement. Rapper Young MC has pulled out, McBride posted her own announcement on X about being misled and dropping out once the truth became clear, and Michaels has also stepped down, citing the event’s “divisive” nature. Alrighty.
As of this writing, the following performers have dropped out:
- Bret Michaels
- The Commodores
- Martina McBride
- Milli Vanilli
- Morris Day
- Young MC
The remaining line-up includes C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, and Flo Rida. We’ll see if they actually make it to the stage in June and July when they’re scheduled to perform. In the meantime, the quick exodus of performers has given the internet a lot of fodder for jokes, and we love to spotlight those here at Kotaku dot com.
I like to imagine that Trump is seething in embarrassment right now, and we’ll know for sure if he is if/when the White House social media accounts start making pissy AI videos targeting these artists like they did with Sabrina Carpenter after the “Espresso” singer publicly called out the administration for using her music.