Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath is taking some heat for apparently celebrating New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago. The singer was spotted at President Donald Trump‘s Florida hotel, and those who are opposed to the impeached president were not happy to see it. Photos of McGrath made the rounds on social media afterward.
Sugar Ray fans were appalled last week when they saw McGrath smiling at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. The picture showed him him in a navy blue dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, showing his chest tattoo beneath. He wore a matching blue blazer over it, and stood in a ballroom full of chandeliers.
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“How big of a douchebag would you have to be to spend New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago?” one fan tweeted. “Like Mark McGrath level.”
Mark McGrath was only invited to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago party because The Spin Doctors, Blind Melon and Smash Mouth we’re all on tour.
Together. #ThursdayMotivation #thursdaymorning #ThursdayThoughts pic.twitter.com/Ad2QMYwp39
— LoveThatJoker! (@Beez2016) January 2, 2020
The story soon spun out of control in a game of social media telephone, as users misread each others’ jokes for real facts. Someone wrote that the woman in the photo with McGrath was his new wife, which someone led others to believe that McGrath had gotten married on New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago. None of this was true, but it fed into the viral myth forming in real time.
Meanwhile, angry Trump supporters began responding to these posts, assuming they were all true. They defended McGrath for his new marriage despite the apparent age difference, and condemned his detractors as “divisive.” Some even perceived McGrath’s trip to Mar-a-Lago as an intentional “middle finger to the left.”
Finally, McGrath posted a response on Twitter on Thursday, Jan. 2. To the disappointment of both sides, McGrath neither denounced President Trump nor “the left” as a whole.
Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray marries longtime gf Felicia at Mar-a-Lago yesterday. Congratulations Felicias.
— Covfefe Jones- King Of Shade👑 (@King_Of_Shade) January 2, 2020
Also, Bye Felicias.
> pic.twitter.com/pKcz39Xt3D
Mark McGrath got married at Mar-A-Lago, so according to the left that automatically makes him a racist, but Trump and conservatives are the divisive ones, not the people spouting hate at him. This is your modern #LiberalLogic #LiberalsAreMorons
— Dennis (@DGardener11) January 2, 2020
“Here’s the deal, I’ve always honored the highest office in the land,” he tweeted. “I’ve performed for President Trump (who I met on Celebrity Apprentice), and I’ve performed for President Clinton. I’m not into politics, just an entertainer who still has unfortunate highlights… respectfully.”
McGrath has defended President Trump in the past, going all the way back to the 2016 presidential election. At the time, he told The Hill that he did not believe Trump’s behavior as a candidate matched the man he had met on TV.
“You know, it’s funny. The rhetoric I saw him using during the campaign is not the Trump I knew, you know? He was always a gentleman; he was always kind,” McGrath said at the time.
