Jennifer Holliday On ‘The View:’ Black Fans Sent ‘Death Threats’ Over Trump Inauguration Performance [Video]
Broadway legend Jennifer Holliday is once again speaking out on her decision to perform for President-elect Donald Trump, and her reasons for quickly reneging on the offer, according to an ABC News report.
The Dreamgirls notable, 56, accepted another invite from some occasionally controversial figures, the ladies of morning gab-fest The View, on Tuesday to share her personal takeaway of events that occurred last week, starting with a phone call from minders of the soon-to-be leader of America on whether she was available to perform at Trump’s inauguration on Friday night.
“Well, I received the call last Wednesday,” Ms. Holliday began, “and I was trying to think [about] if I wanted to do it. Then, on Friday morning, I woke up and there [were] terrible tweets and things on my Instagram, and I was like, ‘oh, Lord, what did I do?'”
Jennifer said that by that point, she hadn’t even confirmed if she would appear at the Trump inauguration, but apparently, accepting the call was all it took for her inclusion to be solidified by the former reality star’s team.
“People were like, ‘you’re singing at the White House,’ and I was like, ‘I am?,’ because we hadn’t even finalized anything,” she continued. “I didn’t know they were going to announce it.”
Despite being unaware of the mention of her participation, Jennifer was seemingly, at first, completely ready to welcome Trump in with her singing talent, just as she had with past performances for both Bushes (George W. and father George H.W.), Ronald Reagan, and even Bill Clinton and his wife, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“[I accepted because] I’m an artist and I love America,” Miss Holliday proclaimed to the audience, who met her response with applause. “I’ve performed for four other presidents [and it] wasn’t such a political thing back then. And so, I didn’t think anything of it.”
“It just didn’t dawn on me that this was a bad thing,” she continued.
“It was my honest desire that my voice could be used as an instrument of healing and unity. I thought it was okay!”
Calling back to the public statement she gave following her rescinding of the invite to the Trump inauguration, which was shared here on the Inquisitr, Ms. Holliday once again referred to her choice to perform as a “lapse in judgement,” before explaining one of the frightful reasons why she distanced herself from the performance: she had allegedly become a target of death threats from her African-American fan base.
“I sent an e-mail to [Trump’s people] and said this had gotten out of hand,” she relayed, “and I was receiving death threats at [that] point, which is never okay. I was receiving [them] from black people, being [called] the n-word by black people who were [also] saying that they were going to kill me.”
“I had never received [that reaction before],” Ms. Holliday tearfully pressed on, adding that she personally took notice of the races of social media users who were making those comments.
“I read everything. They were saying I should kill myself — all over a song.”
Regaining her composure, Ms. Holliday then said that ultimately, it was her own words and promises to her strongest supporters, the LGBT community, who have been increasingly vocal about what could befall them over the next four years, that caused her to reconsider her Trump inauguration plans.
“There was an article in The Daily Beast,” she remarked, noting a post comprised by openly gay writer Kevin Fallon, “that threw back [my own words on the community] to me, and I’m not a liar or a hypocrite. I had to look at [myself] and realize that I was [causing] pain.”
Jennifer Holliday’s full View chat on the Trump inauguration can be seen above.
[Featured Image by Amy Sussman/Stringer | Win Nacamee/Getty Images]
