The country singer Carrie Underwood is scheduled to perform at Donald Trump’s second inauguration this month.
A spokesperson confirmed to Axios that the star will be on the lineup. Underwood, who rose to fame after winning the fourth season of American Idol, will perform America the Beautiful.
The 41-year-old Oklahoma native has remained mostly apolitical but has been vocal about her feelings on animal cruelty, speaking out about a Tennessee bill in 2013 that was seen as a way of making it harder for activists to record animal cruelty and share it with the authorities.
“I feel like more people try to pin me places politically,” she said to the Guardian in 2019. “I try to stay far out of politics if possible, at least in public, because nobody wins. It’s crazy. Everybody tries to sum everything up and put a bow on it, like it’s black and white. And it’s not like that.”
She did poke fun at Trump during the 2017 Country Music Awards with a musical parody alongside Brad Paisley. A reworked version of the hit Before He Cheats referred to Trump’s Twitter habits at the time, with the pair singing that: “It’s fun to watch, yeah, that’s for sure / ’til little Rocket Man starts a nuclear war.”
Underwood has won three Grammy awards and had hits including Inside Your Heaven, Jesus, Take the Wheel and Cowboy Casanova. She recently performed during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.
Victor Willis, lead singer of the Village People, also announced that the band would “participate in inaugural activities” including an event with Trump. “We know this won’t make some of you happy to hear however we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics,” a post on Facebook read. “Our song YMCA is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost.”
For Trump’s 2017 inauguration, performers included America’s Got Talent runner-up Jackie Evancho, Toby Keith and band 3 Doors Down, who faced a backlash from fans. Guitarist Chris Henderson later defended it as “a one-in-a-lifetime chance to do something for your country”.
Stars who publicly declined to perform included Moby, Kiss, Idina Menzel and Charlotte Church.
Biden’s 2021 ceremony featured stars such as Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry.
The inauguration will take place on 20 January.
