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Country star Martina McBride exited Freedom 250 Thursday, calling the event’s nonpartisan framing “misleading” as the lineup loses its fifth act.
The Freedom 250 lineup is now bleeding country. Martina McBride became at least the fifth performer to pull out of the Trump-backed Great American State Fair in Washington, with the country singer issuing a statement Thursday saying the event’s framing had been “misleading.”
MyBeachRadio carried McBride’s full statement. The station’s summary of McBride’s withdrawal post and the running tally of exits across multiple acts reports that McBride wrote she had believed the event would be nonpartisan and that she was upset her fans might feel she was “abandoning the meaning” behind her music.
Her statement leaned on her catalog. “I’ve spent my entire career singing songs about real people with real issues,” McBride wrote. “I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to be a voice for those who have felt like they didn’t have one.”
Her core grievance was about presentation. McBride said the way the event was presented to her team was “misleading,” echoing the earlier Young MC complaint that artists had not been told of any political involvement when first approached.
The Milli Vanilli situation got fresh clarification. Representatives for Milli Vanilli said the group had never been asked to perform at all, despite being listed on the published lineup.
The Commodores‘ exit a day earlier had stayed in similar territory. The group’s Thursday-afternoon statement said it preferred not to publicly align with any single political party, framing the withdrawal as neutral rather than as political opposition.
The thread tying the withdrawals is procedural. The r/politics thread aggregating the cascade of acts bailing and Freedom 250’s responses to each tracks how, in the 24 hours after Wednesday’s lineup announcement, performers began publicly distancing themselves with near-identical language about not having been told the event was political.
Freedom 250 has pushed back on the framing. A spokesperson said the organization’s goal is to “honor our history and engage all Americans” and to create an event that “uplifts and unites,” repeating the nonpartisan label that several of the departing artists are now disputing.
The remaining bill is shrinking by the hour. Bret Michaels, Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and the touring edition of C+C Music Factory are still publicly attached as of Thursday night, though the C+C name is itself contested between cofounder Robert Clivillés and touring frontman Freedom Williams.
The MeidasTouch Facebook post summed up the social-media framing. The progressive-media reaction post framing the withdrawals as a public-relations setback for the White House circulated widely on Facebook, accelerating the news beyond entertainment trades.
The festival runs June 25 through July 10 on the National Mall. The promoters now have fewer than four weeks to either re-book the empty slots or absorb a smaller-than-promised lineup at the country’s 250th anniversary marquee event.
McBride’s exit is the loudest yet. The country veteran is the highest-profile name to walk so far, and her “misleading” allegation now sits on top of the public record about how the bookings were pitched.
The shape of the eventual stage is the open question. With five artists out and the Milli Vanilli identity dispute still unresolved, the difference between Wednesday’s announced lineup and the one that actually plays in June is widening by the day.
