Kennedy Center Head Insists They Instigated Split With the Washington National Opera, Not Vice Versa

In a statement probably anyone could have seen coming, Richard Grenell, the controversial president of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, spoke out to claim that it was the organization’s leadership that decided to end ties with the Washington National Opera, not the other way around.

Grenell’s tweets on the subject Saturday followed by a day the opera company’s announcement Friday that it would be taking its programming elsewhere. Opera leaders had said that it was an amicable split, and made no mention of the political turmoil causing many artists to cancel their Kennedy Center engagements, leaving few “name” acts on the building’s 2026 calendar.

“We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity, and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole — and getting worse,” Grenell wrote in a lengthy statement on X. “Having an exclusive Opera was just not financially smart. And our patrons clearly wanted a refresh,” the Trump-appointed president added.

His assertions that the WNO had operated in the hole for years stood in contrast to previous statements given by opera leadership that ticket sales had declined from a standard 80-90% of capacity to 60% since the Trump administration effectively took over the center last February.

Grenell also claimed that his X account had been hacked after he first posted his side of the story. “I have alerted @X that someone hacked my account last night — and deleted my content on our Opera announcement and media corrections. X will find the hacker and deal with him/her… The Left continues to try and silence people they don’t agree with – but they will never succeed.”

Having apparently regained control of his X account Saturday, Grenell used it to express anger with media outlets that had reported on Friday that it was the Washington National Opera that wanted to move out. He send out a response to the New York Times’ Peter Baker, who had tweeted a link to his coverage along with the message: “The storied Washington National Opera decides to leave the Kennedy Center where it has played since 1971, perhaps the most significant artistic rebuke yet to Trump’s campaign to remake the facility in his image and attach his name to it.”

Responded Grenell on Saturday: “You never do journalism, Peter. You always do partisan attacks on Republicans. You don’t have enough integrity to correct your tweet. So here’s a snippet from the Opera Board Chair noting who asked for the separation first.” He then attached a screen shot of what appeared to be a private communication with the opera leadership, which read: “We have, since November 8th, at Ambassador Grenell’s invitation, been seeking to have meaningful discussion toward how we can amicably bring forward the termination of the Affiliation Agreement. This was endorsed by both our EC on November 10th and Board on December 11th…”

Center spokesperson Roma Davari also tweeted a statement saying it was their decision to end the 45-year-old relationship with the opera company. “When financial commitments are not met year over year, we have to make tough decisions for the financial health of the Trump Kennedy Center,” she tweeted. “Given the longstanding financial strain, it has become necessary for us to part ways to protect the best interests of the Center.”

Whichever party prompted the coming severance of the relationship, both the center and the opera board seem to be in favor of it, and to acknowledge the relationship has not been recently financially successful. Some supporters of the opera have put that down to many of its patrons being reluctant to support the center since Trump took it over at the beginning of his second term, although Grenell went to pains in some of his tweets to contend that the relationship was unprofitable going back years.

Grenell wrote, “Fact: The exclusive Opera contract cost the Trump Kennedy Center $64 million over the last 10 years — with their expenses being double their revenues. We were very pleased that the current Opera leadership was so willing to end their exclusivity. Patrons win: Greater variety.”

Concerning more recent financial details, Grenell tweeted that “the Washington Opera finished FY 2025 with a $7.2 million deficit, not accounting for the $5.8 million additional expenses we gave them. Additionally, Washington Opera ticket sales in 2024 comprised only 4% of total revenue across the Center – making the Opera 8% of combined revenue, but 16% of combined expenses for us.”

In an interview with the Guardian in November, the WNO’s director, Francesca Zambello, said there had been a 40% drop in ticket sales since Trump installed himself as of the Kennedy Center and spoke of “shattered” donor confidence. She said at the time, “People send me back their the season brochure shredded in an envelope and say: ‘Never, never, will I return: while he’s in power.’” She said in that interview that performances by the opera had run at 80-90% of capacity before the political takeover at the beginning of 2025, and since had been reduced to 60%.

It may or may not be coincidental that the screenshot Grenell posted suggesting that he had proposed the breakup dated that as having happened in November, the same month that Zambello did the interview openly discussing the marked drop in ticket sales since what the Guardian called a “Trump coup.”

Although engagements have been canceled due to the political firestorm and reporting has indicated low attendance for many of the programs going on — with an October report in the Washington Post bearing the headline “Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted since Trump takeover” — Grenell’s tweets on Saturday claimed that the center just enjoyed “a record-breaking fundraising year.”

It’s not clear whether the Washington National Opera will continue to have its spring season take place at the Kennedy Center or whether its leadership is hoping to relocate some or all of those events.

Among the programs on the opera calendar is an upcoming gala event which songwriter Stephen Schwartz was listed as the host and curator for, until he announced that he had no plans to set foot in the building again. The gala is now listed without a host or celebrity attached.

The opera company’s statement Friday said that it would “seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity.” According to the New York Times report that Grenell found objectionable, “Opera officials said that new sites in Washington have been lined up but that no leases have been signed.”

The opera has performed almost exclusively at the center since it opened in 1971.

Under Grenell’s leadership, the board recently voted to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center, with lettering with the current president’s name added to the exterior of the building the next day. Opponents of the move have pointed out that, legally, it would require an act of Congress to rename a national monument, so dispute continues over what the current name of the venue actually is.

Grenell was not solely concerned with the Washington National Opera or his hacked account on Saturday, also devoting tweets to how California governor Gavin Newsom “is running the largest state in the country into the ground,” celebrating the halt to public media funding, and approvingly reposting video of an individual being captured by ICE in Los Angeles.