Billy Crystal poked fun at President Donald Trump and the recent Los Angeles mayoral race while hosting the opening night festivities for the 2026 Hollywood Bowl season.
Halle Bailey joined Tony Award winners Darren Criss, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Lea Salonga as the performers of “The Best of Broadway,” which kicked off the storied L.A. venue’s summer lineup on Saturday. Conductor Thomas Wilkins led the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in accompanying the stars, alongside members from the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and the California State University, Fullerton University Singers.
“Welcome to the 2026 opening night of the Hollywood Bowl,” Crystal told the crowd at the start of the evening. “I haven’t heard excitement like that since they took Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center. Unbelievable.” The barb led to enthusiastic cheers from the audience.
After lamenting the infamous L.A. traffic, the nine-time Oscar host quipped, “Everything’s slow here. That’s how we count our mail-in ballots — very slow. Right before I came out, they had the final results of the governor race, and Gray Davis is going to be in.” The joke, which referenced the former California governor who was recalled in October 2003 and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, followed a vote-counting process earlier this month that took the city nearly a week to conclude that Spencer Pratt would not be moving on to this fall’s mayoral runoff election.
