A judge has ruled that the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. must pay a jazz musician $252,000 in legal fees and costs, following the organization’s unsuccessful lawsuit against him for pulling out of a concert in the wake of a rebranding to include Donald J. Trump‘s name.
Chuck Redd hosted and performed at the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Eve concerts for years, but he bowed out of performing at last December’s planned gig, citing “the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center.” The Kennedy Center — or the Trump Kennedy Center, as it was then temporarily known — subsequently sued Redd for breach of contract.
The org, which has been taken over by Trump allies, made a show of threatening to sue Redd, and then following through on it. “This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” Richard Grenell, then-president of the center, told Redd in a letter after he backed out.
In June, D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier tossed the lawsuit, saying there was no signed contract to be breached. While Redd had been in talks to perform on Christmas Eve 2025, as in past years, “I could not find a valid breach-of-contract claim here,” Jones Bosier said in dismissing the suit. “There’s no dispute that he did not sign the 2025 agreement.” The Kennedy Center had argued that he had “agreed to a written contract” to play the gig for $6,500, regardless of whether he actually signed it.
