President and Interim Executive Director of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Richard Grenell called out The Associated Press for allegedly lying about an event getting canceled.
“The [AP] lied,” he shared in a tweet on Monday. “And … [The Advocate] has been forced to tell the truth. We didn’t cancel a single show at the Kennedy Center. We simply ask that shows don’t lose money and leave us with the bill,” he added, including the hashtag “CommonSense.”
The @AP lied.
And the @TheAdvocateMag has been forced to tell the truth.
We didn’t cancel a single show at the Kennedy Center.
We simply ask that shows don’t lose money and leave us with the bill. #CommonSense https://t.co/AVkNK5CPJO
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 5, 2025
Per The Advocate, Capital Pride Alliance canceled their event at The Kennedy Center voluntarily, which is different from the story published in AP.
The outlet noted that a display of panels including the display of an AIDS Memorial Quilt and a Drag Story Hour have been relocated to WorldPride Welcome Center in D.C.
Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos told The Advocate that they changed venues because of the “inhospitable” environment at The Kennedy Center.
“We would not be allowed to have any official drag programming,” Bos said. “That defeats the purpose of Pride — in terms of creating a welcoming and safe environment for anybody to feel comfortable being their true, authentic self, which is what Pride’s about.”
Bos continued, saying, “If someone doesn’t feel comfortable being their true, authentic self, then that’s not the venue or space where we want to have an event.”
In response to the accusations, a rep from The Kennedy Center told The Daily Wire, “We would have worked with them on a program.”
Meanwhile, the AP story published April 25 said that “organizers and the Kennedy Center have canceled a week’s worth of events,” with some artists and producers allegedly telling the outlet that their Pride-related programs were dropped. So far, the outlet has not issued a statement or published a correction to the original piece.
The Kennedy Center has been in the news ever since President Trump took office and promised major reforms, including firing the entire board, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote on social media in February. “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
The changes made by the new board led to full-scale meltdowns on the Left, including protests expressed through interpretive dancing. But their protests haven’t made much of a difference. The Kennedy Center just broke its all-time attendance record for a public event it hosted on March 29, welcoming 11,000 attendees, of whom 76% were there for the first time.
