Broadway Star Carole Cook Stirs Controversy With Assassination Joke About Donald Trump

Broadway star Carole Cooke is facing backlash following a controversial John Wilkes Booth [...]

By Allison Schonter

Broadway star Carole Cooke is facing backlash following a controversial John Wilkes Booth assassination comment regarding President Donald Trump.

Carole Cook stirred controversy Sunday night after TMZ caught up with her and her husband Tom Troupe in West Hollywood and asked her about a recent Frozen Broadway performance during which a member of the audience unfurled a "Trump 2020" banner. When asked if a Frozen broadway musical, a musical largely targeted towards children, was the "proper venue" for politics, Cook gave the controversial comment.

"Well my answer to that is, where is John Wilkes Booth when you need him?"

As Cook's husband pointed out, Booth "killed presidents," namely President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. during the play Our American Cousin.

Cook went on to say that she hoped the comment would land her on an "Enemies List," referring to President Richard Nixon's list of political opponents. Social media users seemed to think that Cook deserved to be on such a list.

Cook is far from the only celebrity to make what could be deemed a threat towards the now President. In 2017, comedian Kathy Griffin infamously posed with the fake severed head of Donald Trump, a photo that led to immediate backlash.

Cook's comments came after Wednesday, Sept. 5 Broadway staging of Disney's hit Frozen. At curtain call, a man in the audience wearing a "Make America Great Again" visor unfurled a banner reading "Trump 2020." Actor Timothy R. Hughes immediately ripped the banner from the man's hands and tossed it aside.

Hughes later took to Instagram to explain what had occurred.

"What does it say about our country and politics when a man at the show tonight felt the need to protest Disney's Frozen on Broadway with a pro Trump flag?? How frightening is it that our show's messages of love, acceptance, and diversity have become the opposition to supporting Trump?" Hughes wrote, adding that the curtain call is a "thank you between actors and audience" and a "final connection to end a shared experience."

Hughes went on to say that he would not "apologize for how I responded to the disrespectful man."

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