FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend failed to drum up much enthusiasm at a poorly attended Donald Trump rally in D.C. before belting out the national anthem.
“Oh, no… country music?” one attendee told CNN when asked whether she was looking forward to watching singer Alexis Wilkins, 27, perform at the president’s Great American State Fair on Wednesday.
“Well, I think the Army band, and the choirs, they’re gonna be really good,” the woman added.
Wilkins, who started dating Patel, 46, in early 2023, is a Nashville-based aspiring country music singer who is yet to have a single track rack up more than a few hundred thousand streams on Spotify. She announced she’d landed the D.C. gig just one day earlier.
Online reviews of her actual performance weren’t much kinder. “Would have preferred Kash Patel!” one user wrote. “She sounds like A DEAD CAT!!!!!” another added.
“Hello, D.C. police. I’d like to report a murder,” a third said. “Yes, someone has viciously murdered the national anthem.” Another user said it was “embarrassing for America,” while a fifth asked: “Wasn’t Milli Vanilli available?”
The State Fair was marred even before it began after several headlined artists pulled out ahead of time, with many saying they didn’t want to be associated with something so “political.” Pop duo Milli Vanilli, famously stripped of a Grammy in 1990 after it emerged that they had not sung a word on their breakthrough album, were one of the acts to walk away from the event, describing it as a “circus.”
Users in the comments section under Wilkins’ announcement that she’d been booked for the fair were quick to note quite how last-minute the change had been, and some suggested her relationship with Patel was likely a factor.
“Does having the FBI director’s girlfriend getting paid by the taxpayers to perform violate federal ethics laws?” right-wing reporter Sara Higdon posted. “You’re telling me Kash didn’t pull any strings with Trump,” one person added. “Yeeeeah ok, whatever you say.”
“More stealing of tax payer money so you and your moronic incompetent boyfriend can participate in kiss that big orange clowns a–,” a third person said. “A great honor to get asked when they couldn’t find anybody else lol,” a fourth wrote.
Wilkins wasn’t taking it lying down. “Let’s just get a few things straight, because this is long overdue,” she wrote in a furious riposte to Higdon’s initial post, insisting that she’d had a “successful career in both music and commentary/strategy” for years.
She went on to say that she’d been “invited to sing this anthem on my own accord,” that she was not “accepting payment for this great honor,” and that neither the event nor any of the others under Trump’s Freedom250 efforts to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was being funded by taxpayers.
NOTUS previously reported that the Trump-created nonprofit behind the celebrations has received approximately $80 million in taxpayer funds. “I’m no longer accepting false narratives and total sham accusations that diminish my hard work and earned accomplishments, so please expect this kind of response to continue,” Wilkins added.
Turnout at the state fair was arguably lower than Wilkins may have hoped at an event that might otherwise have boosted her limited online streams. Trump even used his own appearance at the sparsely attended Wednesday event to awkwardly beg MAGA fans to turn out in better numbers for his “Tribute to America” rally on July 4 on the National Mall.
“Your favorite president will be speaking, so please show up,” the president said, in comments echoing Jeb Bush’s entreaty for a room of supporters to “please clap” during his abortive run in the 2016 Republican primary.
“If we have two empty seats, you know what’s gonna happen?” Trump went on. “The fake news is gonna say, he didn’t fill out the arena.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Wilkins’ representatives for comment on this story.
