After Donald Trump gutted the Kennedy Center, installed himself as chairman, and put a bunch of cronies on the board, guitarist Yasmin Williams reached out to the institution’s interim executive director, Richard Grenell, with some fairly reasonable questions.
Williams, who’s performed at the Kennedy Center numerous times over the years, wrote to Grenell that she was concerned about issues like the reported rollbacks of the Kennedy Center’s DEI initiatives and the pointed cancellation of certain shows. She mentioned a canceled concert by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and a production of Finn, a coming-of-age musical for kids about a young shark who feels different from other sharks.
Noting that the overhaul and such decisions had led many of her musical peers to cancel their Kennedy Center shows, Williams posed two questions to Grenell about the present and future of the historic institution: “Does the President actually care about care about artists cancelling shows at the Kennedy Center?” And, “What, if anything, has changed about the Kennedy Center regarding hiring practices, performance booking, and staffing?”
The note kicked off a surreal, contentious exchange between Williams and Grenell, which the former shared screenshots of on Instagram. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Grenell — who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany during his first term — didn’t seem that interested in actually engaging with Williams’ questions. He responded to her initial email with the blunt non-sequitur, “Let me ask you this question, would you play for Republicans or would you boycott if Republicans came to your show?”
After Williams noted that, as a professional musician who “played hundreds of shows,” she’s likely played for plenty of Republicans over the years, she questioned the relevancy of Grenell’s response. The interim director then made the wild assertion that, “Every single person who cancelled a show did so because they couldn’t be in the presence of republicans.”
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Grenell went on to complain to Williams that “Your people also booed and harassed” Vice President J.D. Vance when he and his wife, Usha Vance, attended a Kennedy Center show last month. He also alleged that the Kennedy Center has “zero in the bank and zero in the reserves,” and that the “programs are so woke that they haven’t made money.”
He added: “Yes, I cut the DEI bullshit because we can’t afford to pay people for fringe and niche programming that the public won’t support. Yes, I cut the people making over $500k a year because we are in debt. Yes, we are doing programming for the masses in order to pay our bills.”
(While Grenell didn’t name any specific cut shows or programs, regarding the cancellation of Finn — the musical Williams mentioned in her first email — the Kennedy Center previously said its cancellation was a “purely financial decision” that was in the works before the leadership changes. This despite the fact that Finn frequently played to sold out crowds at the Kennedy Center and turned a profit, according to show co-creator Michael Kooman.)
The last screenshot Williams shared of her conversation with Grenell found her encouraging the interim director to “re-read my original email since you seem to be extremely defensive for no reason.”
She added: “I never accused you of being intolerant… I don’t know you. I was relaying what others have said regarding the Kennedy Center and I asked my own questions. I’m honestly shocked at how unprofessional your emails are, but I guess that’s par for the course these days, on both sides of the political aisle.”
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Reflecting on the exchange in the caption to her post, Williams said she emailed Grenell as part of an effort to “go to the direct source” for her questions because of conflicting reports about the Kennedy Center shake-ups. Of her decision to share the exchange, Williams said, “I hope posting this email thread illuminates the terrible folks who are now leading the Kennedy Center. I’ve had so many amazing career and life highlights at the Kennedy Center and I hate to think that the establishment could be run down permanently by this man.”
A rep for the Kennedy Center did not immediately return a request for comment.
