Jimmy Kimmel roasted President Donald Trump for the uninspiring musical lineup at his Great American State Fair.
The event is scheduled to take place at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., from June 27 to July 10. The event was planned by Freedom 250, a group that describes itself as a “non-partisan organization delivering presidential-level celebrations for our nation’s 250th birthday.”
Shortly after the line-up was announced, however, multiple musicians pulled out of the event. Country singer Martina McBride announced on Thursday that the event had been sold to her as nonpartisan. “That turned out to be misleading,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
The Commodores, Young MC, and Morris Day & The Time were also set to perform at the event, but each of them pulled out, too.
In his monologue on Thursday, Kimmel described the remaining line-up of the event, which included artists like Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice, as “like Coachella for bands that hired their cousin as their tour manager.”
Kimmel summed up all the chaos that’s unfolded around the concert so far:
“The listed performers include pop duo Milli Vanilli (one of whom is dead), pop duo C+C Music Factory (another of whom is dead),” Kimmel noted.
“But don’t worry,” Kimmel said. “Bret Michaels, Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and the guy from the Cracker Barrel logo tootin’ on the jug are in it, so far. We’ll check back on that tomorrow to see if they’re still in.”
Kimmel was fascinated by the situation with German pop duo Milli Vanilli. Although musicians Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were the public faces of the band, they were revealed in a 1990 scandal to have been lip-syncing.
Singers Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco, twin sisters who served as two of the original studio vocalists behind Milli Vanilli, revealed that the band’s real singers had not been asked by the event planners to perform.
“Milli Vanilli, or whatever’s left of Milli Vanilli, put out a statement saying they were never asked to perform and would not be taking part in the concert,“ Kimmel told viewers.
Kimmel continued, “The statement said, ‘Others using the name ‘Milli Vanilli’ that appear on the advertisement should be considered a tribute band with no association vocally, musically, to our sounds and songs.’”
The late-night host joked, “How can someone pretend to be Milli Vanilli when Milli Vanilli was pretending to be Milli Vanilli?”
The only Milli Vanilli performer at the MAGA-affiliated concert will be Fab Morvan; he sings live as a solo artist, but he was never a real voice behind the band.
Freedom Williams, the surviving member of the pop duo C+C Music Factory, defended his scheduled performance at the MAGA-affiliated event in a 7-minute rant video on his Instagram page.
“You keep pushing me,” Williams told his critics, “I’ll do the motherf---ing show in North Korea, pissing on the f---ing American flag, smoking a Cuban cigar, drinking Venezuelan wine... That’s how much of a s--- I give what you think.”
Williams delivered the entire rant while sitting on his bathroom toilet, openly admitting to “taking a s---.”
“I feel like hearing from him only once every 35 years isn’t enough,” Kimmel said in response to William’s clip.
The late-night host added, “What a concert this is gonna be. Everything they [the Trump administration] do, they screw up. They cannot do anything.”
