In a world where the president-elect may owe a debt to Ted Nugent enthusiastically grabbing his junk on the campaign trail, it didn’t seem all that strange to hear that hedonistic glam metal guy Vince Neil had been tapped to play Donald Trump’s inauguration. Those reported plans have now been axed.
The former Mötley Crüe frontman claims he’s been cut from the gig. (Form an orderly line for those Kanye West quips, please.) Speaking with TMZ, Neil says his post-Crüe band was scheduled to play, but the offer was rescinded after Trump seized the White House.
“As far as I knew, we were playing. It turns out when the Republicans won, we were uninvited,” he told the Kardashian-monitoring outlet. “I just found out about this today when all this stuff came out when I was playing. I asked my guys, and they said once Trump won, it was all politics. I don’t know who’s playing Trump’s party, but God bless them.”
To be fair, the prospect of Neil performing at the inauguration seemed curious to begin with. Classic rock is cat nip for white folks, but Neil’s past is checkered even by Sunset Strip vet standards. The 55-year-old singer has been arrested on numerous occasions for reasons ranging from vehicular manslaughter to assault of a sex worker. Critics of Trump might suggest that the optics of having Neil at the inauguration wouldn’t be that far off what’s been encountered during election season.
