UFC boss Dana White registered disapproval today over actress Meryl Streep’s anti-Donald Trump tirade delivered at last night’s nationally televised Golden Globe awards specifically as it related to his organization.
Meryl Streep, a three-time Academy Award winner and a multiple Golden Globe winner, was on stage to receive a lifetime achievement honor for her legendary acting career known as the Cecil B. DeMille Award when she began taking Trump to task. At one point in her remarks, she said that “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. If you kick ’em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.”
Streep received a standing ovation from the overwhelmingly pro-Hillary Clinton crowd at the awards ceremony.
While Trump — a former Democrat and independent who ran for president as a Republican — regularly mixed with celebrities during his high-visibility career in and out of show business, that was then, and this is now, and many in the stage and screen industry apparently are still having trouble coming to grips with with the final results of election 2016.
On Twitter this morning, Trump described Streep as an overrated Hillary Clinton flunky.
When asked for his reaction to the actress’s comment about MMA, “White objects in a BIG WAY — calling the dig at his sport ‘stupid’ and “uneducated,” TMZ explained.
Dana White endorsed Trump for president in December 2015 because the former New York real estate mogul backed UFC when White was struggling to get the business off the ground.
White told the TMZ cameras that Meryl Streep is way outside the prime demographic. See clip below.
“It’s not going to be everybody’s thing, and the last thing in the world I expect is an uppity, 80-year old lady to be in our demographic and love mixed martial arts.”
In response to a question, White acknowledged that it was possible that Streep singled out MMA because he spoke at the Republican National Convention last July, but he wasn’t sure.
White called attention to the fact, however, that new UFC owner and Hollywood mover-and-shaker Ari Emanuel (the brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel) didn’t support Trump.
White continued that Meryl Streep was off base in the part of her speech that dissed UFC.
“If you really look at who follows the UFC and is into mixed martial arts, it’s everybody. Like I said, I don’t expect an 80-year old woman to be a big fan of mixed martial arts, and listen, everybody’s into whatever — I’m not a big fan of golf. It doesn’t mean people should stop watching it. If you don’t like it, change the channel.”
Dana White also rejected Streep’s dismissive contention that MMA is not an art, which he attributed to her lack of knowledge about the sport. “[MMA fighters] are so talented; they train their whole lives to be the best in the world,” noting that UFC fighters, in particular, are “the elite of the elite.”
“Saying something stupid like that is like saying that she’s not a talented actress, which she is.”
The UFC president also insisted that the organization is very diverse, contrary to what Meryl Streep seemed to suggest at the Golden Globes.
“We have fighters from all over the world. World champions, men and women,..we do fights in tons of foreign countries. She’s not educated about the sport, and it was a completely uneducated comment.”
Meryl Streep is 67 rather than 80, however.
“White was not the only head of an MMA company to challenge Streep on her comments. Scott Coker, president of Bellator, posted an open letter to the actress that called his sport ‘truly artistic’ and invited her to attend an upcoming event,” the Washington Pos t reported about additional fallout from the Golden Globes speech.
So far, it does not appear that anyone from the NFL has expressed thoughts about the Meryl Streep football reference at the Golden Globes.
[Featured Image by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images]