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Trump Wants 'The People' at the Inauguration, Not Celebrities

January 18, 2017

President-elect Donald Trump told Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt in a Wednesday interview that the celebrities who refuse to attend his upcoming inauguration were not invited anyway.

"Many of the celebrities that are saying they're not going, they were never invited," Trump said. "I don't want the celebrities; I want the people."

Many celebrities have joined the ranks of nearly sixty Democratic lawmakers who have joined to skip the inauguration on Friday as a way to protest Trump's presidency.

Trump has had various rifts with celebrities in the time after his election in November. Last week, actress Meryl Streep criticized the president-elect in her Golden Globes acceptance speech, which led Trump to label her a "Hillary flunky" on Twitter.

Trump also took to Twitter to respond to Saturday Night Live's parodies of him, calling the cast "terrible."

Singers and other musicians have also said they would not perform at the inauguration, Earhardt noted to Trump.

"They were not asked to sing," Trump replied.

Andrea Bocelli faced a "boycott Bocelli" social media movement after rumors surfaced that he would sing at the inauguration, though it is unclear whether Bocelli offered to sing or he was asked to.

Fashion designer Tom Ford is among the celebrities boycotting the future first family. He pledged that he would not make Melania Trump's gown for the inauguration, alongside other designers, like Marc Jacobs, who have refused to dress the Trumps.

But the president-elect does not seem to care.

"We have the biggest celebrities in the world there," Trump said on Wednesday.