Thousands — and some city officials — want Trump's Hollywood star removed
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Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in April 2021. Photo: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
An activist is forcing Los Angeles city officials to confront an unprecedented question: Whether former President Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame can be withdrawn, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Why it matters: A star has never been removed from the Walk of Fame, which honors more than 2,700 celebrities in motion pictures, television, radio, recording and other forms of media.
- A 2020 petition calling on the Los Angeles City Council to remove Trump's star has so far received over 3,8oo signatures.
- Andrew Rudick, the Hollywood Hills resident behind the petition, told the Times that Trump deserves to have his star removed because he attempted a coup against the U.S.
- "It cannot be this hard. This man attempted a coup against the United States and yet we continue to honor him … How are we the voters supposed to have faith in the city council to deal with any real level of challenge if they can't get this done?," Rudick told The Guardian.
Flashback: Trump was awarded the star in 2007 for his work on "The Apprentice" and the Miss Universe pageant.
- His star has been destroyed and vandalized multiple times since the 2016 election, including being smashed with a pickaxe in 2018.
- Each time, the star was replaced or restored.
Of note: There is confusion around who is responsible for the stars — the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which oversees the star ceremonies, or the Los Angeles City Council, which owns the sidewalks they're embedded in.
- So far, neither the chamber or council have acted upon efforts to remove Trump's star, though at least one city council member, Bob Blumenfield, told the Times he would support the removal.
- Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez told the Times that Trump is a "racist, fascist, and a threat to our democracy," but confirmed that the council is "looking into where the authority lies, what the legal issues may be, and what a process for it might look like" to remove his star.
The big picture: There have been previous efforts to take out stars belonging to other celebrities, like Kevin Spacey and Bill Cosby, but they were rejected by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
- The chamber confirmed to The Guardian that the policy of not removing stars from the Walk of Fame has not changed and that while repairing Trump's star has been expensive, it's "not so expensive it's prohibitive."
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