Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 celebration has lost two-thirds of its musical acts after another artist dropped out over the president’s ties to the event.
Nine acts, including country star Martina McBride, rapper Young MC, and Poison frontman Bret Michaels, were announced this week as musical guests at the Great American State Fair, a festival taking place on the National Mall between June 25 and July 10.
The event was billed to the performers as a non-partisan celebration of U.S. history, according to multiple artist statements. It is, in fact, being organized by the MAGA-backed Freedom 250.
Early on Friday, Michaels became the latest act to drop out, bringing the total to six cancellations out of the nine previously confirmed.
“I’ve spent my entire career bringing people together through music, positivity, and good vibes,” Michaels said in a statement on Instagram. “My shows have never been about politics. They’re about giving people a place to come together.”
Michaels won Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2010.
The original line-up for the Freedom 250 free concerts also included rappers Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice, soul band The Commodores, dance act C+C Music Factory, pop duo Milli Vanilli, and funk act Morris Day and The Time.
McBride, 59, posted Thursday on Facebook that she had been “assured this was a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate ALL 50 states.”
“I saw it as just a bigger version of so many state fairs I have performed at over the years,” she wrote, adding that the organizers had provided a “misleading” description of the event.
Young MC, the rapper behind the 1989 hit “Bust a Move,” shared a similar statement on Instagram, saying the artists had “never been told about any political involvement with the event,” which organizers claimed was “non-partisan.”
Milli Vanilli, Morris Day and The Time, and The Commodores have also announced they won’t be performing.
As of early Friday, only Vanilla Ice had confirmed on Instagram he would still be taking the stage.
C+C Music Factory was still undecided but appeared to be leaning toward performing, while Flo Rida had yet to comment on the controversy, despite some of his fans begging him on social media to drop out.
Congress originally established a bipartisan America250 commission in 2016 to “plan and orchestrate the 250th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence,” historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote this month on her Substack Letters from an American.
Shortly after he returned to office, Trump appointed MAGA acolytes to manage America250, but he ultimately decided to bypass any congressional oversight or pretense of partisanship by creating his own organization—Freedom 250—last December.
Of the $150 million that Congress had appropriated for this year’s celebrations, the Trump administration has allocated $100 million to Freedom 250, which is housed inside the National Park Foundation, and just $25 million to America250, which is a stand-alone non-profit, The New York Times reported in February.
Freedom 250 has also solicited donations in exchange for access to Trump, and has planned events that showcase the president instead of remembering key events in the nation’s history, according to the Times.
The mass exodus of Freedom 250 talent sparked outrage among MAGA supporters, with McBride in particular bearing the brunt of their anger.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Freedom 250 for comment.
