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American Music Awards: Gigi Hadid, Idina Menzel, Green Day Get Political With Trump Disses

By Lorenzo Tanos
Published on: 03:36 PST, Nov 21, 2016

Coming not long after one of the most controversial presidential elections in recent U.S. history, the American Music Awards was unsurprisingly a forum for some of the country’s top celebrities to throw shade at the movers and shakers of politics, especially president-elect Donald Trump and his family. And dumping on the Trumps appeared to be a prevalent theme in the remarks made by these celebrities at the American Music Awards, such as model Gigi Hadid, “Let it Go” singer Idina Menzel, and punk rock legends Green Day.

This year’s AMAs proved to be another big night for the biggest names in popular music. On Sunday night, rapper Drake had a record-setting 13 nominations, winning four awards, including trophies for favorite rap/hip-hop artist and favorite rap/hip-hop album. It was also a poignant tribute to the late singer Prince, as the influential artist’s 1984 soundtrack album for the film Purple Rain won the favorite soundtrack award at the AMAs, despite its age. And Selena Gomez made a dramatic speech after winning favorite female pop/rock artist, opening up about her recent struggles with depression and anxiety in her first post-rehab appearance.

Still, it was politics that made for some of the most significant takeaways from the 2016 AMAs.

By far, the most prominent anti-Trump statement made wasn’t one made against the man himself, but rather his wife Melania. As The Inquisitr reported earlier today, American Music Awards co-host Gigi Hadid adopted a fake European accent as she poked fun at the time Melania Trump allegedly plagiarized a speech by First Lady Michelle Obama at the Republican National Convention.

“I love my husband, President Barack Obama and our children Sasha and Malia.”

Not wanting to be left out, singer Idina Menzel and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who both supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in this year’s elections, joked about how they weren’t invited to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

According to the Washington Post, Menzel had trolled Trump at the AMAs by “giving a shout out” to the cast of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton; last week, Trump had taken to Twitter to call the musical “highly-overrated,” and to demand that the cast apologize to vice president-elect Mike Pence “for their terrible behavior” toward him at a Friday showing.

It wasn’t surprising either that some of the most biting anti-Donald Trump statements came from the rockers. Green Day took to the stage at the AMAs to perform their song “Bang Bang,” and as the Washington Post noted, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong edited the song’s chorus to include the following words:

“No KKK, no fascist USA, no Trump.”

With the AMAs all said and done, scores of netizens, especially Trump supporters, registered their disgust on social media and expressed their disappointment in the anti-Trump sentiments at the awards. But it wasn’t that way for everyone who disssed the president-elect on Sunday night. The Twitterverse was comparatively quiet when it came to Idina Menzel’s Hamilton shout-out, while Green Day’s performance was met with mixed reactions; the band’s fans were largely supportive of the gesture, but others found their version of “Bang Bang” disrespectful and even pandering.

On the other hand, Hadid’s AMAs appearance was met with far more criticism than praise. One Twitter user called her “offensive” and “classless” and a “beautiful bully.” Another user, who goes by the handle “Lady GOP for TRUMP,” even went as far as suggesting a boycott on Maybelline products, considering that Gigi is one of the brand’s top endorsers.

Others, however, were more politically neutral in their criticism, focusing instead on how they didn’t like Gigi Hadid’s performance as American Music Awards co-host in general, rather than on her controversial Melania Trump impersonation.

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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