Chrisette Michele visited CBS News in January 2017 to explain her decision to perform, clarifying that she didn't vote for Trump in the November 2016 election but that she "wanted to start a conversation. I want everybody to know what everybody's going through so we can all fight together. But if we're all shouting and yelling and nobody really knows what the real issues are, it might take no political genius to talk about them."
Michele's comment directly references the spoken word single she released following the backlash from her inaugural ball performance titled "No Political Genius." In the song, Michele calls herself "the black sheep disguising the scared wolf" and "the black elephant in the red room, scared shook," which the soul singer told CBS referred to the presidential stage. Still, Michele defended her comments, saying that she felt like her performance could spark conversations across tense party divides and act as an example of Black excellence in a racially split political realm.
Moreover, Michele didn't accept the invitation for free, as she had when performing for the Obamas or troops in Iraq years prior, per The Washington Post. The singer earned a staggering $75,000 for her short performance, but the collaborations and support she lost in the aftermath proved far more costly.
