Donald Trump Announces George Strait, KISS & Michael Crawford Among 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees

Country icon George Strait, 1970s rock veterans KISS, Broadway star Michael Crawford, disco queen Gloria Gaynor and actor Sylvester Stallone are the 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees – the first class of honorees since President Donald Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, firing trustees who had been appointed by President Joe Biden and replaced them with his own picks.

In his first term, Trump never once attended the annual Kennedy Center Honors gala, making him the first president to never attend the event during his term. In announcing this year’s inductees at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday (Aug. 13), Trump also revealed that he will host this year’s show. The show will air on CBS in December. It will mark the first time a president has hosted the show.

Last year’s honorees, the last class to receive the honors under President Biden, were filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, iconic rock band Grateful Dead, singer-songwriter-guitarist Bonnie Raitt, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and The Apollo Theater in Harlem, the first venue to receive the honor.

The Kennedy Center Honors were first presented in 1978. The inaugural class consisted of contralto Marian Anderson, dancer-actor-singer Fred Astaire, choreographer George Balanchine, composer Richard Rodgers and pianist Arthur Rubinstein.

While the focus in the early years was on fine arts – heavy on classical and opera – over the decades, it has broadened to also include more popular forms of music. In 1987, B.B. King became the first blues artist to be inducted. Other performers who were the first in their genres to be honored were Roy Acuff for country in 1991, Aretha Franklin for R&B in 1994, Pete Seeger for folk in 1994, Bob Dylan for rock in 1997, Gloria Estefan for Latin music in 2017 and LL Cool J for rap in 2017.

Here’s a quick look at this year’s honorees.