KISS to Receive Kennedy Center Honors From President Donald Trump
KISS have been selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors and will be presented the award by President Donald Trump, who will host the ceremony on Dec. 8.
"We'll be honoring one of the greatest rock bands of all time, KISS," Trump said while announcing this year's class of honorees, which also includes George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Crawford and Gloria Gaynor.
The Kennedy Center honors are designed to reward individuals who have made significant contributions to American culture through the performing arts.
After unveiling a photo of KISS at the announcement ceremony, the President praised all four original members of the band — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley — as "incredible" and hard working people.
He then ran through a list of their accomplishments: "KISS became a global phenomenon, sold more than 100 million records worldwide and produced 30 gold albums and lots of other things they produced, they made a fortune."
Trump also stated that KISS would do "something special" to commemorate the occasion: "They're going to do something very special, KISS is gonna be here on, a little bit before the show I think, they're going to do something special, we're going to have a great time."
MANDEL NGAN, Getty Images
Soon after the announcement, radio host Eddie Trunk tweeted that he had been told by "a very reliable source" that only the four original members Trump named would receive the honors, and that they had all agreed to attend, but not perform together at the event.
As Deadline notes, Trump has previously criticized the Kennedy Center as "woke" and its honoree selections as "radical left lunatics." He fired his predecessor Joe Biden's nominees to the organization's board, which resulted in Trump himself being appointed as the Kennedy Center chairman.
Last year's class of Kennedy Center honorees included director Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the Apollo Theater.
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