Photograph: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Workers reforge Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame after it was destroyed on 26 October 2016. The star has also proved to be a magnet for street artists, who have variously turned the marble and terrazzo plaque into a mini-jail or adorned it with a toilet, tub and box files as a commentary on the classified documents found in a bathroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Yet on each occasion the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has resisted calls either to remove it or to leave the damage un-repaired. Trump’s star, which he earned after hosting several seasons of the TV reality show The Apprentice, has been repeatedly defaced or destroyed in the eight years since he first ran for president.

“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?” That paralysis astonishes activists like Andrew Rudick, a singularly determined campaigner who regularly confronts public officials about the Trump star at dedication ceremonies for new honorees on the Walk of Fame. “They’re paralyzed about making a decision,” said one prominent business leader in Hollywood, who like many others interviewed for this story asked to remain anonymous for fear of offending colleagues or associates on a vexatious topic. Their hesitation can seem perplexing in a city where Trump barely cracked 25% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election, and where, before he entered politics, he was treated not as a revered entertainer but largely as the butt of jokes and gossip. Other elected officials have been similarly circumspect, tiptoeing around the wishes of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which has administered the Walk of Fame since its inception more than 60 years ago, and emphasizing the bureaucratic complications of removing a star where no star, no matter how controversial, has been removed before. Trump’s star vandalized with a pickaxe on 25 July 2018. When the Guardian asked what he meant, however, Zbur’s office responded first that he was too busy to comment, then said that his job was to work on state-level policy and he “generally defer to local leaders on issues at the local level”. “However, I have too many other critical issues on which I am currently focused.”Īsked about the star this summer, the California state assemblymember whose district includes the Walk of Fame, Rick Chavez Zbur, told a meeting of Democratic party activists to “stay tuned”. “I would vote to remove any city-owned public display of support for Mr Trump in a heartbeat,” city council member Bob Blumenfield wrote to an activist in March 2022 in response to a years-long campaign against the Trump star. On the few occasions they do, it’s usually to attempt to explain their inaction.

Political aides and others in and around city government say as much in background briefings and off-the-record conversations.īut they find it remarkably difficult to talk about it openly, a reflection of the dysfunction of LA city politics. All indications are that the city leadership would like to see Trump’s star gone – ideally before next year’s presidential election.

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