Holliday provided this explanation to The New York Times:
“I’m singing on the mall for the people,” she said. “I don’t have a dog in this fight — I’m just a singer, and it’s a welcome concert for the people on the mall.”Ms. Holliday, speaking during a telephone interview Friday afternoon, said she had not supported Mr. Trump’s candidacy — “I voted for Mrs. Clinton, and they knew that.” But, she said, “if someone wants me to sing a national anthem or something, we think about America, and we go.”
However, Holliday apparently ended up changing her mind after reading a Daily Beast piece titled “Jennifer Holliday Will Perform at Trump’s Inauguration, Which Is Heartbreaking to Gay Fans.”
TheWrap today posted the open letter Holliday sent out explaining why she has now backed out of
I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarized country… Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.In light of the information pointed out to me via the Daily Beast article on yesterday, my only choice must now be to stand with the LGBT Community and to state unequivocally that I WILL NOT PERFORM FOR THE WELCOME CONCERT OR FOR ANY OF THE INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES!
She apologized to fans for her “lapse of judgment” and for causing them “dismay and heartbreak.”
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac