Singer Jennifer Holliday pulled out of her planned performance at Donald Trump’s inauguration after reportedly receiving death threats. The Dreamgirls star, who withdrew from the line-up at the weekend, is thought to have cancelled her set as she didn’t want to put her family ‘at risk’.
Holliday originally said that she was pulling out of the inauguration out of support for the LGBT community.
A representative for the Broadway star has now told TMZ: “It was all of those things. She wasn’t scared to perform. “She didn’t want to put her family at risk based on the death threats and she also didn’t want to offend the LGBT community which was especially upset that a past ally would perform on a programme with President-Elect Donald Trump.”
In an open letter posted at the weekend, the 56-year-old told her fans:“I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarised country.
“Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
“In light of the information pointed out to me via the Daily Beast article on yesterday, my only choice must now be to stand with the LGBT Community and to state unequivocally that I WILL NOT PERFORM FOR THE WELCOME CONCERT OR FOR ANY OF THE INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES!”
Artists still set to perform on January 20 include 3 Doors Down, Toby Keith, The Piano Guys, Larry Stewart, DJ Ravidrums and Jackie Evancho.