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A District of Columbia judge has ordered The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to pay jazz musician Chuck Redd $252,000 in legal fees and costs, capping the institution’s failed lawsuit against the performer after he withdrew from its annual Christmas Eve concert in protest of the venue’s rebranding under Donald Trump, Variety reports.
Redd, a longtime host and performer at the Kennedy Center’s Christmas Eve concerts, pulled out of the December 2025 engagement, citing “the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center.” The institution – then temporarily operating as the Trump Kennedy Center – responded by suing him for breach of contract.
The threat came first in writing. “This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” then-president Richard Grenell told Redd in a letter after the musician withdrew.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier threw out the suit in June, finding no signed agreement existed to be breached. Though Redd had been in discussions to perform on Christmas Eve 2025 as he had in previous years, the judge said, “I could not find a valid breach-of-contract claim here. There’s no dispute that he did not sign the 2025 agreement.” The Kennedy Center had argued Redd “agreed to a written contract” to play the date for $6,500 regardless of whether he signed it.
Per Variety, Redd’s attorneys have said the Center quietly offered to settle before the dismissal, proposing to drop the case if Redd paid $7,500 and performed on Christmas Eve 2026 – with no political commentary and no discussion of why he had withdrawn the year prior.
Attorneys for the Kennedy Center argued ahead of Monday’s ruling that the fees Redd sought were “out of all proportion to the issue at stake.” Jones Bosier disagreed, finding $252,000 reasonable given the work required of Redd’s legal team.
“The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center tried to silence opposition to its illegal name change by filing a meritless lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd,” Lisa J. Banks, one of Redd’s attorneys, said in a statement Tuesday. “The court rightly dismissed that breach of contract lawsuit, finding there was no contract and no damages, and was brought against Mr. Redd based on his protected opposition. Now the court has ordered the Kennedy Center to pay Mr. Redd’s legal fees, which is appropriate as no citizen should have to spend time and money fending off baseless and politically motivated lawsuits filed by the Trump Administration.”
The ruling arrives amid continued fallout from the rebranding effort. On May 29, a federal judge ordered Trump’s name removed from the façade of the Kennedy Center, ruling the board’s move to add it was illegal. Workers have since pried the lettering off the building, but the exterior remains covered by a tarp.
