Cole Escola hasn’t forgotten about Nicole Scherzinger’s eyebrow-raising interest in a hat featuring a variation on President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, even if much of the Broadway community appears to have moved past it.
Shortly after their Tony Award win for “Oh, Mary!” on Sunday, Escola offered a pointed reminder of the controversy that ensued when Scherzinger inquired about Russell Brand’s MAGA-inspired “Make Jesus First Again” hat on Instagram last fall.
“The speculating is over,” Escola quipped to reporters in the Tonys press room upon receiving word that Scherzinger had won Best Actress in a Musical for her career-redefining “Sunset Boulevard” performance.
They went on to note: “Four years. Four more years!”
Scherzinger was hit with backlash from fans in early November, not long after “Sunset Boulevard” opened to critical acclaim on Broadway. Just days after Trump was reelected, she posted a supportive comment on an image of Brand ― who backed Trump in the 2024 election ― in his “Make Jesus First Again” hat.
“Where do I get this hat?” Scherzinger wrote in the now-deleted comment, alongside both praying hands and red heart emojis.
Around the same time, a 2016 Daily Mail interview with Scherzinger resurfaced in which the former Pussycat Dolls member acknowledged her initial reluctance to appear in a television remake of “Dirty Dancing” because her character, Penny Johnson, receives an abortion.
Days later, Scherzinger responded to the criticism with a lengthy apology on her Instagram Stories, stating she’d “made the mistake of not realizing that [her comment on Brand’s post] could be easily interpreted as being politically related.”
“Many presumptions are being drawn, which do not reflect who I am, what I stand for, or who I voted for,” she continued, according to Entertainment Weekly. “Many of the marginalized communities feeling hurt and concerned by the results of the presidential election are people I care about most. I stand with them, as I always have, throughout my life and career. If you know me, you know that.”
Scherzinger, a devout Catholic, did not specify which candidate she’d voted for in her statement. At the time, many suggested her lack of clarity regarding her views might hurt her chances at Sunday’s Tony Awards ― which clearly wasn’t the case when she secured her win over the category’s other presumed frontrunner, “Gypsy” star Audra McDonald.
Escola became the first openly nonbinary winner in the Best Actor in a Play category for their performance as first lady Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” The dark comedy, which Escola wrote, also nabbed the award for Best Direction of a Play for Sam Pinkleton.
