Patti LuPone says she would ‘not perform’ for Donald and Melania Trump
By Ross Semple
We can always rely on Patti LuPone to speak her mind in a way only she can.
LuPone appeared on the ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast to discuss her latest role in the Broadway show War Paint, for which she has received rave reviews. She talked about her reputation for being ‘tough’, which she said has come with time. “People think that I’m hard and tough,” she said. “I wasn’t born that way. One becomes that. One acquires the skills to protect oneself.”
When asked about what she would do if President Trump were to show up to a performance of the play, LuPone didn’t mince words: “I would not perform and they know that.”
She also had a message for Melania Trump: “Melania, if you can hear me, divorce his ass!”
Last month Patti slammed Madonna during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. “Madonna is a movie killer. She’s dead behind the eyes,” Patti said. “She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be on film or on stage. She’s a wonderful performer for what she does, but she is not an actress.”
During a 2015 performance on Show for Days in New York, LuPone snatched a phone out of an audience member’s hand mid-performance – without even breaking character.
Fuming that she was hired “an actor, not a policeman of the audience”, the 66-year-old told the New York Times following the incident: “This woman – a very pretty young woman – was sitting with her boyfriend or husband. We could see her text. She was so uninterested. She showed her husband what she was texting. We talked about it at intermission. When we went out for the second act I was very close to her, and she was still texting. I watched her and thought, “What am I going to do?”
“At the very end of that scene, we all exit. What I normally do is shake the hand of the people in the front row. I just walked over to her, shook her hand and took her phone. I walked offstage and handed it to the stage manager, who gave it to the house manager.”
We love you, Patti!
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