Trump names Stallone and Crawford among Kennedy Centre Honours nominees

US President Donald Trump has named Rocky actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, British actor-singer Michael Crawford, the rock band Kiss and country music star George Strait among the first batch of Kennedy Centre Honours nominees in his new role as chairman.

Crawford starred in Phantom Of The Opera on Broadway and the West End, and writer Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber was himself a Kennedy Centre Honours recipient in 2006.

Other previous British recipients have included Sir Elton John in 2004 and Dame Julie Andrews in 2001.

Mr Trump said he will “fully renovate” the entire infrastructure of the Kennedy Centre to make it a “crown jewel” of arts and culture in the United States.

“We’re going to bring it to a higher level than it ever hit,” he said, adding that the venue would be featured in next year’s celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary.

The Republican president said he did not want to host the programme but was invited to do so and agreed.

Mr Trump avoided the Kennedy Centre Honours awards programme during his first term after artists said they would not attend out of protest.

This year, the president has taken over as the Kennedy Centre’s new chairman and sacked the board of trustees, which he replaced with loyalists.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Mr Trump teased a name change for the centre, formally the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, and said it would be restored to its past glory.

“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” he wrote.

Mr Trump said work was being done on the site that would be “bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment”.

“It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!” he wrote.

In a statement on its social media feed, the Kennedy Centre said it is “honoured” to host Mr Trump, who will be visiting for the third time since January, and hinted that he would announce a construction project.

“Thanks to his advocacy, our beautiful building will undergo renovations to restore its prestige and grandeur,” the venue said.

“We are also excited to be announcing this year’s INCREDIBLE slate of Kennedy Center Honorees.”

Mr Trump complained during a March visit that the building is in a state of “tremendous disrepair”.

The president, who had indicated he wanted a more active role in the selection process, said he was “about 98% involved” in choosing the honorees.

He said he “turned down plenty” of names, saying those individuals were “too woke”, or too liberal.

Mr Trump described the slate of artists he announced on Wednesday, which include several of his personal favourites, as “great people”.

Historically, a bipartisan advisory committee selects the recipients, who over the years have ranged from George Balanchine and Tom Hanks to Aretha Franklin and Stephen Sondheim.

In the past, Mr Trump has floated the idea of granting Kennedy Centre Honours status to singer-songwriter Paul Anka and Stallone, one of three actors Mr Trump named as Hollywood ambassadors earlier this year.

Anka was supposed to perform My Way at Mr Trump’s first inaugural and backed out at the last moment.

The Kennedy Centre Honours were established in 1978 and have been given to a broad range of artists.

Until Mr Trump’s first term, presidents of both major political parties traditionally attended the annual ceremony, even when they disagreed politically with a given recipient.

Prominent liberals such as Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty were honoured during the administration of Republican George W Bush, and a leading conservative, Charlton Heston, was feted during the administration of Democrat Bill Clinton.

In 2017, after honoree Norman Lear declared that he would not attend a White House celebration in protest over Mr Trump’s proposed cuts to federal arts funding, Mr Trump and first lady Melania Trump decided to skip the Kennedy Centre event and stayed away throughout his first term.

Honorees during that time included such Trump critics as Cher, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Sally Field.

Since taking office for a second time, Mr Trump has taken a much more forceful stance on the Kennedy Centre and inserted himself into its governance.

Besides naming himself chairman and remaking the board, he has also indicated he would take over decisions regarding programming at the centre and vowed to end events featuring performers in drag.

The steps have drawn further criticism from some artists.

In March, the producers of Hamilton pulled out of staging the Broadway hit musical in 2026, citing Mr Trump’s aggressive takeover of the institution’s leadership.

Other artists who cancelled events include actor Issa Rae, singer Rhiannon Giddens and author Louise Penny.

House Republicans added an amendment to a spending Bill that Mr Trump signed into law in July to rename the Kennedy Centre’s Opera House after Melania Trump, but that venue has yet to be renamed.

Maria Shriver, a niece of the late President Kennedy, a Democrat, has criticised as “insane” a separate House proposal to rename the entire centre after Mr Trump.

Recipients of the Kennedy Centre Honours are given a medallion on a rainbow ribbon, a nod to the range of skills that fall under the performing arts.

In April, the centre changed the lights on the exterior from the long-standing rainbow to a permanent red, white and blue display.