{"id":23395,"date":"2026-05-30T01:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/milli-vanilli-young-mc-wont-perform-at-trump-linked-freedom-250-fair\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T01:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:20:31","slug":"milli-vanilli-young-mc-wont-perform-at-trump-linked-freedom-250-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/milli-vanilli-young-mc-wont-perform-at-trump-linked-freedom-250-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Milli Vanilli, Young MC won&#8217;t perform at Trump-linked Freedom 250 fair"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\">\n<div>\n<p>                                <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=\"1780023467000\" data-recent-thresholdinhours=\"1\">                    <template data-date-tpl>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]<\/template>                    <span data-date><\/span>                <\/bsp-timestamp>            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>                                    <bsp-page-actions>                            <\/bsp-page-actions>                                                            <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>NEW YORK (AP) &mdash; A day after the <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/donald-trump\">President Donald Trump<\/a><\/span>  -affiliated Freedom 250 announced the &ldquo;first wave&rdquo; of performers for &ldquo;The Great American State Fair&rdquo; shows on Washington&rsquo;s National Mall in June and July, the lineup has been hit with a wave of cancellations. Young MC, Morris Day, the Commodores and Martina McBride are among the scheduled acts who have said they will not be appearing. <\/p>\n<p>Scheduled performers also include Milli Vanilli, the pop duo from the 1980s who were discredited after it was revealed that their frontmen, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, were only lip-syncing. <\/p>\n<p>Milli Vanilli won a Grammy in 1990 for Best New Artist, but the award was rescinded after the scandal broke. Pilatus died in 1998, while Morvan has attempted a solo career and published a memoir, &ldquo;You Know It&rsquo;s True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Morvan recently told The Guardian newspaper that he owns the Milli Vanilli name, and he said in a statement Thursday that he would be performing at the Great American State Fair.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I am here to entertain and unite people, not divide them,&rdquo; Morvan said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s celebrate life &amp; music and take a trip down memory lane. I feel honored to be a part of as it will celebrate the 250 Year Anniversary of America with so many other accomplished artists.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. Freedom 250, which Trump launched late last year, describes itself as a &ldquo;national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation&rsquo;s 250th birthday.&rdquo; Trump appointed Keith Krach, who served as an under secretary of state during his first term, as the organization&rsquo;s CEO.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and his supporters have long had a contentious relationship with the music community. <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/music-celine-dion-paris-concerts-4c0b2133cf7f673a7cac4b6fa970196d\">Celine Dion<\/a><\/span>, <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/elton-john\">Elton John<\/a><\/span>  and Guns &rsquo;N Roses are among the many artists who have objected to their music being played at Trump rallies. <\/p>\n<p>Country singer McBride wrote Thursday on social media that she had agreed to perform after she &ldquo;was assured this was a nonpartisan event.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Yesterday things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening,&rdquo; she said.<\/p>\n<p>In an Instagram post, Young MC questioned whether the National Mall shows would be nonpartisan. &ldquo;The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,&rdquo; he wrote, adding that he hoped to &ldquo;perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Day posted on Instagram, &ldquo;Contrary to rumor, Morris Day &amp; The Time will not be performing at the &lsquo;GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>McBride was scheduled for June 25. Young MC and Milli Vanilli were among those on the roster for an &ldquo;I Love the &lsquo;90s&rdquo; concert on June 26. Day was listed for June 27. Other performers announced include Flo Rida and Bret Michaels. The Great American State Fair is scheduled to run June 25-July 10.<\/p>\n<p>At least one &ldquo;I Love the 90s&rdquo; act will be there: Vanilla Ice. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;He is proud to help celebrate America&rsquo;s 250th Anniversary!&rdquo; a representative for the &ldquo;Ice Ice Baby&rdquo; rapper wrote in an email to the AP. &ldquo;Everyone is welcome to attend and celebrate USA&rsquo;s Birthday and our Freedom!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/freedom-250-milli-vanilli-young-mc-bb9c58cb68d3af91cd8aeb5c5c5d26a1\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] NEW YORK (AP) &mdash; A day after the President Donald Trump -affiliated Freedom 250 announced the &ldquo;first wave&rdquo; of performers for &ldquo;The Great American State Fair&rdquo; shows on Washington&rsquo;s National Mall in June and July, the lineup has been hit with a wave of cancellations. Young MC, Morris [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}