Music Legend Addresses ‘Shocking’ MAGA Rumors

Country music legend Wynonna Judd is setting the record straight after longtime friend Rosie O’Donnell publicly described her as a supporter of President Donald Trump — a characterization Judd says caught her completely off guard.

The 62-year-old singer said she was “in shock” when she learned what O’Donnell had said, explaining that the two women have never actually discussed their political beliefs.

“I’ve never spoken to her about politics in my life,” Judd told People. She added that O’Donnell was making an assumption and identified herself as an independent who generally prefers not to discuss politics publicly.

The surprising dispute between the longtime friends began after O’Donnell appeared on The Tangle podcast in August and discussed whether she maintains relationships with people who support Trump.

O’Donnell, 64, named Judd as an exception.

She said she had known and loved the country star for many years and believed Judd supported Trump, despite politics apparently never becoming a subject of conversation between them.

O’Donnell explained that she was able to put what she believed were their political differences aside because of her affection for Judd and sympathy for the difficult experiences Judd has endured throughout her life.

But there was one major problem with that story.

According to Judd, O’Donnell had never asked her.

“I don’t know where it came [from],” Judd told People while describing the claim as an assumption.

Judd said she was not angry with O’Donnell, however, and appeared far more interested in avoiding a public feud than turning the misunderstanding into another celebrity political battle.

After Judd responded, O’Donnell acknowledged that she had reached her conclusion because the country singer previously performed at Mar-a-Lago.

“I just thought, as she has performed at Mar-a-Lago, that she was,” O’Donnell told People, before apologizing if her assumption was incorrect.

There is some history behind O’Donnell’s assumption.

Judd performed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, in November 2023 during an America First Policy Institute event. Trump attended the gathering and addressed the crowd, while Judd performed “Love Is Alive,” the 1985 hit she originally recorded as part of The Judds with her late mother, Naomi Judd.

However, performing at an event does not by itself establish how an entertainer votes or identifies politically — and Judd’s public record is more complicated than O’Donnell’s description suggested.

Years earlier, in 2019, Judd also visited the Trump White House while advocating for criminal-justice reform and programs aimed at helping former inmates successfully return to society.

At the time, the issue was deeply personal for Judd. Her daughter, Grace Kelley, had been incarcerated, and Judd had become involved with organizations focused on reducing recidivism and helping prisoners rebuild their lives after release.

Reports from the time said Judd met with White House official Brooke Rollins about criminal-justice reform and spoke informally with administration officials including Kellyanne Conway and Jared Kushner.

Judd also made clear during that 2019 visit that she viewed her presence in Washington through a humanitarian rather than explicitly partisan lens.

That history provides additional context for the latest controversy. Although Judd has appeared at events involving Trump and Trump-aligned figures, the singer now says O’Donnell went too far by assigning her a political identity without actually discussing the subject with her.

For Judd, the misunderstanding apparently isn’t worth destroying a friendship.

She said she was considering whether to speak directly with O’Donnell but emphasized that she has little appetite for additional drama.

“There’s so much going on right now in the world,” Judd told People, ultimately asking a much simpler question: “Can we just love each other?”

O’Donnell, meanwhile, has been one of Trump’s most outspoken celebrity critics for years. Her feud with Trump stretches back roughly two decades, long before his presidency, and she has repeatedly made clear that his politics have affected whom she chooses to keep in her personal life.

That was what made her comments about Judd especially notable. O’Donnell had presented the country star as the rare Trump supporter with whom she was willing to maintain a close friendship.

Now Judd says the political divide O’Donnell described may never have existed in the first place.

Rather than embracing either political label, Judd is describing herself in much simpler terms.

She says she is an independent — and would prefer to keep her politics private.