Patti Lupone isn’t mincing words when it comes to her thoughts on Donald Trump. “The country is doomed,” the Broadway legend, 71, said in the 2020 Variety Power of Women issue. “I think it is a failed experiment. I don’t see us pulling ourselves out of this. I think we’re heading into either fascism or a dictatorship.” Lupone has made her disdain for Trump known long before this candid interview.
While starring in the Broadway musical War Paint alongside Christine Ebersole in 2017, Lupone announced that she’d refuse to perform if she found out the newly-inaugurated president were in the audience. Why? “Because I hate the motherf**ker. How’s that?,” she said on the Tony Awards red carpet. During an interview that same year on Show People With Paul Wontorek, Lupone elaborated on her distaste for the president.
“He’s a motherf**king a**hole,” the two-time Tony winner said. “He’s a f**king nut. He’s certifiably insane, and he has compromised this country.” She added that his actions as president were “tantamount to treason. “Why haven’t we done anything about it? Why is this taking so long? What the f**k is going on in this country?”
Unfortunately, Lupone thinks that Trump will win again in the November 2020 election against Democratic nominee Joe Biden. “I think Trump will win a second term, and I think I’ll move to Ireland,” she declared to Variety — and they stressed that she’s serious. Lupone, who is sheltering in place at her Connecticut home with husband Matthew Johnston during the coronavirus crisis, has an EU passport and “fell in love” with the country while filming Penny Dreadful in 2015.
Lupone also blames the rising death rates from COVID-19 on Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic. A dedicated supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the virus has left those with AIDS and HIV issues that much more vulnerable to illness. Her career has been impacted, as well. Broadway shuttered its doors in March, just as her latest musical, Company, was about to premiere. The producers told her the Great White Way would only dim its lights for two to three weeks.
““Now they say Broadway will be shuttered until Labor Day,” she said. “Well, we all know that’s not true. I think it’s going to come back at the earliest in January and maybe not even then. It’s very, very depressing and very worrisome.”