Barbra Streisand Condemns Trump’s ‘Unchecked Ego’ Over Kennedy Center Name Battle: ‘Galling and Painful to Witness’

Barbra Streisand, the legendary vocalist and actor whose nearly sixty-year career has brought her an Academy Award, multiple Grammy wins, and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor, has issued a sharp public rebuke of President Donald Trump's management of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In a statement released Thursday through her official website, Streisand argued that the institution's fundamental integrity is now in jeopardy. Reflecting on her own induction as part of the 31st annual class of honorees, she said the recognition transcended a mere career achievement, writing, "For me, and for so many artists, that honor represented something larger than a career recognition. It represented a belief in the importance of art to the life of a democracy."

Her remarks landed the same day a district judge required the Kennedy Center to provide no less than 30 days' notice before undertaking any demolition or new construction—a ruling prompted directly by Trump's threat that the venue might "end up being ripped down" absent his backing. First opened in 1971 as a living tribute to President Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, the Center has served for decades as one of the nation's premier cultural stages, welcoming everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Lin-Manuel Miranda. Streisand recounted that the current dispute began when Trump sought to have his name added beside Kennedy's at the building's entrance. The attempt drew widespread resistance from artists and the public alike, and a federal judge ultimately determined the name could not be changed without congressional consent; Trump's name was then taken off the façade.

According to Streisand, that was hardly the end of it. Following the removal, she wrote, a "humiliated" Trump directed that a large tarp be draped over the façade, where it still hangs. The Trump-aligned board then pushed again to insert his name, triggering a second federal ruling that stopped the effort. "And now, a thoroughly defeated Trump has announced that the Kennedy Center is being closed for what the completely stacked board describes as a major renovation," she went on. "Oddly, when Trump's name was still on the building, there was no discussion of closing it!" With her statement, Streisand also shared a black-and-white photo of herself alongside Kennedy, plus another with Morgan Freeman at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. In 1975, she had filmed her "Funny Girl to Funny Lady" television special at the venue.

Streisand's message also looked back at how the Center came to be, noting that Congress in 1964 designated the National Cultural Center as a memorial to Kennedy—an apt tribute to a president she characterized as a true advocate for the arts. "It is difficult not to think about what President Kennedy himself would have envisioned for the Center: not a monument frozen in time, but a living place where artists could challenge, inspire, provoke, and bring Americans together through the transformative power of the arts," she wrote. Dr. Miriam Caldwell, a cultural policy scholar at Georgetown University, has noted that political interference in arts institutions often erodes public trust and can deter private donors—effects that may linger for years. Streisand closed by urging Americans to use their right to vote in the coming midterm elections, calling it one more reason the stakes could hardly be higher.