Donald Trump's ambassador to Belgium mocked pop star Katy Perry on stage in Brussels on Sunday 28 June, railing against her absence from an America250 celebration at Cinquantenaire Park after her scheduled festival show was cancelled for safety reasons.
The America250 event, organised by the US Mission to Belgium, was billed as a glossy soft‑power moment to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. The celebration took over the sprawling public park in the Belgian capital, shutting it to ordinary residents and filling it instead with invited guests, political speeches and a distinctly pro‑Trump line‑up of performers. It also featured a pre‑recorded video appearance by Donald Trump himself.
Ambassador Bill White, Trump's nominee to represent Washington in Brussels, was one of several speakers brought on stage in front of the invite‑only crowd. The programme included country outfit the Zac Brown Band, hardly a household name in Belgium, and singer Alexis Wilkins, introduced as the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, who ran into technical problems during her attempt to sing the US national anthem.
Perry, by contrast, never appeared. She had been contracted months in advance to headline Belgium's Werchter Boutique festival on Saturday, the day before the America250 event, and her team had made clear she could not sign up for another Brussels performance that same weekend.
The weather had other ideas.
A few hours before Perry was due on stage at Werchter Boutique, organisers pulled the plug, citing severe weather and safety concerns for the tens of thousands already gathered. The singer later told fans that the call had been taken while she was literally in the chair.
'I was backstage at the show in the middle of hair and makeup when this news was delivered, and they gave me no choice. I am just as unhappy as you are,' she wrote on Instagram, explaining that the decision was out of her hands. 'Unfortunately this is beyond my control, but the safety of all 55,000 of you always comes first and foremost.'
Katy Perry Becomes Punchline In Ambassador Bill White's Speech
The news came after months of slightly awkward back‑and‑forth about whether Katy Perry could be tempted to appear at the America250 bash at all.
In February, Ambassador White said that Perry's festival contract prevented her from promoting any other event in the country until Werchter Boutique was sold out. 'So maybe she will come the next evening, maybe not,' he said at the time, striking an optimistic note despite the obvious clash.
She did not come. Instead, White used his moment on stage on Sunday to take aim at the 'I Kissed a Girl' singer in a speech that, in both tone and content, felt heavily modelled on his boss.
Adopting Trump's crowd‑size braggadocio and combative style, White riffed on what might have been. 'So we were gonna have Katy Perry. Who cares?' he told the audience, drawing some laughter. Then he twisted the knife. 'Karma is a b—h. You know the joke? She was gonna perform last night. She got rained out.'
There was no mention, at least in that clip, of the safety rationale cited by Werchter organisers or of Perry's own statement that she had been pulled against her wishes. Instead, the ambassador framed the weather cancellation as some kind of cosmic payback for her failure to turn up at his party. It was a petty line, even by current political‑showbiz standards.
IBTimes UK cannot independently verify the full context of White's remarks, so take everything lightly, but the version circulating online shows a diplomat far more interested in scoring a culture‑war point than in sounding diplomatic.
America250 In Brussels Draws Local Anger And Trump Showmanship
It can be recalled that the America250 celebrations in Brussels had already stirred controversy before anyone mentioned Katy Perry.
Residents and local campaigners were furious that Cinquantenaire Park, a vast public space that normally belongs to joggers, picnickers and dog‑walkers, had been sealed off for a closed US Embassy event. White addressed that brewing resentment directly from the stage, defending the decision to bar the public. He reportedly told attendees that the park was closed 'because we're the United States of America,' a line that sounded less like outreach and more like a flex.
The ambassador also showed off a large gold ring topped with a jewelled letter 'T,' which he said was made in Antwerp. The design and the flourish around it played like a knowing nod to Trump's brand of flashy symbolism, the kind of stuff that delights loyalists and makes critics roll their eyes.
Trump himself appeared via a pre‑recorded video message from the Oval Office, broadcast on big screens at the park. In it, according to the event description, he praised the 'people of Belgium' for never forgetting the US soldiers who died in the World Wars to help keep Europe free. The segment was pitched as a moment of shared remembrance, but in the wider staging, it sat alongside a distinctly partisan atmosphere.
Perry, whose last Belgian performance was in 2009, has built much of her recent brand on big festival moments and elaborate arena shows rather than this sort of political entanglement. Her decision to prioritise Werchter Boutique fits that pattern. The storm that blew in over the festival site was freakish, the organisers' choice to cancel was criticised by disappointed fans but broadly understood, and Perry's note about putting 'the safety of all 55,000 of you' first was, frankly, common sense.
