Jennifer Holliday has had a whirlwind couple of days in the news cycle. First, she announced that she would be performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwjIrPbj7snRAhVr0oMKHTtoCOgQFggiMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmadamenoire.com%2F782645%2Fjennifer-holliday-pulls-trump-inauguration%2F&usg=AFQjCNFZ1nrarZvkH5ZM6oJHjOs7d6ArGg&sig2=NNRJmY-TfX7VYIRfmuCdpQ">And then, a few days later she pulled out</a>, apologizing to the LGBT community, specifically, as she did so. And while many would say the situation has been handled, fixed and is over, that wasn’t the response from the public. People were still quite hurt that she would even entertain such a request.
<img src="http://madamenoire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/jennifer-holliday-feat.jpg" alt="" width="772" height="434" class="aligncenter wp-image-782737" />
Today, Holliday appeared on “The View” to talk about the reason why she’s not attending Trump’s inauguration and shed tears as she spoke about the response from some of her fans.
<blockquote>“I got the call on Wednesday night. So we began to talk about everything, about doing it. I was trying to think about if I wanted to do it. Then Friday morning I woke up and there was this whole thing of terrible tweets and things on my Instagram. And I was like, ‘Oh Lord, what did I do?’ And they were like you’re singing at the White House…and I was like, ‘I am? What happened?’ Because we hadn’t really finalized everything yet. And I was like, ‘Oh my goodness’ because I didn’t know they were going to announce it and stuff. And my publicist said, ‘People want to talk to you.’ You know, I’ve lead a pretty reclusive life. I pretty much stay to myself. And you’re not on the radio and then you wake up one morning and everybody hates you. And I’m like, ‘What could I have possibly done to have these kinds of things thrown at me?’</blockquote>
Sunny asked the million dollar question. “Why did you initially consider performing at the inauguration?”
<blockquote>Holliday said, “Because I’m an artist and I love America. It just didn’t dawn on me. I had performed for four other presidents. It started with Ronald Regan, Daddy Bush, Bush, The Clintons during their eight-year time…And so I didn’t think anything of it. I was like, ‘Oh they want me to sing! I can see myself on the mall like Marian Anderson, I’m saying America and I’m trying to think about what I’m going to wear. It didn’t dawn on me that this was really a bad thing and that we weren’t doing America right now. ‘Oh okay, we’re doing something totally different.’ It was really my honest desire that my voice could be used as an instrument of healing and unity. And I thought that we had instructions from the Obamas and the Clintons that it was a go-ahead. We were going to do a ceasefire for one day. And I just thought it was okay. And the Bush daughters sent the Obama daughters something and I thought, ‘We’re on our way here.’ And we’re not on our way.”</blockquote>
Then Joy asked her why she called her initial decision to perform a lapse of judgment.
<blockquote>“Well, the lapse of judgment was that I didn’t realize that people weren’t really over the election. Things started back up again. You start remembering things and the fire start burning. And although the Obamas said move on and Oprah said move on, the people have not finished with this. They want to get it all out. They want closure, like a bad relationship. I missed all of that. And one reporter asked me, ‘Well, where have you been for the last twenty months?’ I said I been working. I’m singer. That’s what I do. I sang.”</blockquote>
Joy also asked what was the response when she decided she wasn’t going to perform.
<blockquote>“I just sent an email and just said that it had gotten out of hand. And I was even receiving death threats at this point. And I was receiving death threats from Black people. The N word from Black people, who were saying they were going to kill me. At first, I said, ‘Are these White people messing with me?’ And I would push the button to see who was calling me because your face is there. And I said, ‘Oh my God these are Black people calling me this.’ And they were saying I should kill myself or someone should kill me. All over singing a song! I said, ‘I just wanted to sang!’ I don’t really understand. So it did take people to point out to me why they felt it was the wrong decision. And everybody kept saying, ‘Why didn’t you choose to support the gays that made you influential?’ Because the gay community, since Dreamgirls, for 35 years has been faithfully there for me. And then also the article in <em>The Daily Beast</em>, they threw my own words back to me. And I’m not a liar or a hypocrite and I had to look at my words and they were hurting. And I probably would have done the same thing if they had painted the issues to me. But everybody was just hurling insults at me and calling me all kind of names. I don’t see how you see through that. I didn’t know what the identifiable pain was. But the gay community, through <em>The Daily Beast</em>, was able to say ‘Look it’s not just we want to be married. There are other things going on, you’re not aware of.’</blockquote>
Jedediah Bila asked her if she went back on her decision because of the internet bullying. And Holliday reiterated her comments for the people in the cheap seats.
<blockquote>“I felt exactly like I said. The Daily Beast letter used my words to me, things that I had said to the community. So they said to me, if your words are true and you’re not a liar all of these years, otherwise everything you have said or you have done is a lie. And I’m not a liar nor a hypocrite and I haven’t done anything to be called names. We’ve come to this.”</blockquote>
Sara Haines said that the people issuing death threats are just as bad as Trump.
And Whoopi concluded the conversation like this, “This is why I say, it has to come from the top. As long as he continues to do this, this is what he’s leading…”
You can watch this portion of Holliday’s interview in the video below.
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">"Because I'm an artist and I love America!" <a href="https://twitter.com/LadyJHOLLIDAY">@LadyJHOLLIDAY</a> says of why she originally planned to perform at a Trump inauguration event. <a href="https://t.co/AxDOAvsLl8">pic.twitter.com/AxDOAvsLl8</a></p>
— The View (@TheView) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheView/status/821411417681108992">January 17, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
What do you think about Holliday's comments?
<em>Image via ABC</em>
<i>Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bettah-Days-Veronica-R-Wells/dp/1535549866" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.amazon.com/Bettah-Days-Veronica-R-Wells/dp/1535549866&source=gmail&ust=1484766332853000&usg=AFQjCNG1zP2a-xv2Rd2iPDkRr1yC3zw6lA">“Bettah Days.”</a> You can follow her on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/veronicarwells" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.facebook.com/veronicarwells&source=gmail&ust=1484766332853000&usg=AFQjCNEbG-v8Bani4RjvQCVFSzH1Y2Cxhg">Facebook</a> and Twitter<a href="https://twitter.com/VDubShrug" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/VDubShrug&source=gmail&ust=1484766332853000&usg=AFQjCNHZM5e-uH4ArJdccCJF9sOYGPbWDg"> @VDubShrug.</a></i>
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