Kennedy Center Regulars Did Not Enjoy the "Melania" Premiere

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News & Politics
Kennedy Center Regulars Did Not Enjoy the “Melania” Premiere

"We would not be here if we knew," said a woman who'd come to hear Brahms.

Written by Sylvie McNamara | Published on January 30, 2026


Photograph by Sylvie McNamara

Last night, the Kennedy Center was locked down like an embassy under siege. The police presence was colossal. The city closed the surrounding streets. Nonetheless, a sizeable contingent of official Washington trundled through snowbanks and slush puddles, past protestors with megaphones, through multiple security barricades and throngs of flashing police lights and black SUVs to attend the premiere of Melania. Then there were the rest of us, who’d just come for the National Symphony Orchestra.

“Nothing could be more dreadful than being in this building for the Melania premiere,” said one chic woman waiting in line for the metal detectors. She hadn’t even realized that there was a MAGA-world screening that night; she’d just come to hear some Brahms. Among the NSO patrons in the Hall of Nations, that sentiment was common. Asked if they’d known about the movie premiere in advance, a group of women chatting by a bank of windows all said no. “We would not be here if we knew,” one said. Her friend added that she was pretty “creeped out.”

Some concertgoers only realized things were amiss when they found that the Kennedy Center’s shuttles weren’t running from Foggy Bottom. Others realized when they saw that all the roads were blocked off. A handful put the pieces together when they received an email from the Kennedy Center alerting them to heightened security for an unnamed event. But many seemed to have been caught completely unaware. “I had no idea,” said one man who’d just moved to DC. “I saw the convoys outside—like, ten cop cars and then six Escalades and then ten more cop cars and I texted my friends about how weird this was and they were like ‘Yeah, the Melania premiere is tonight.’”

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