The Weeknd and Belly Canceled Their Appearance on Kimmel Because of Trump (Good on Them)

Handsome bonsai The Weeknd was supposed to be on Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday, performing "Might Not" with fellow Canada man, the rapper Belly. (A fine rap name. Very great.) Only that didn't end up happening, because Kimmel also opted to have ratings supernova and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump as a guest. Kimmel and Trump shot the shit, filled some airtime, and reaped the benefit of a quadrillion morning headlines to fill the emptiness, like so:

It's a funny quandary: Trump is guaranteed eyeballs/pageviews/all that nonsense, but he is also a despicable cancer, a blight on dignity, and an affront to good, which puts any media entity (Kimmel, GQ, etc.) in a tricky position. It can often be difficult to distinguish real news from blowhard noise, and the thing about late-night TV is, it's mostly a bunch of softballs wrapped in the warmth of a giggly studio audience. It tilts toward entertainment, and Trump is already a master of deflection. Why give him airtime?

Which brings us back to Belly (and, by extension, The Weeknd), who opted not to appear on the same telecast as Trump. As Belly said in a statement:

"I'm here on a campaign of positivity and love and to contribute what I can to music," Belly said. "I create songs people go to sleep and wake up to, songs that they fall in love to. For me, being Muslim and being somebody that appreciates my access here in America, I love the fact that I'm able to be here. To play my part in this business is a privilege and a beautiful thing. The fact that I could lose that ability through the actions of someone such as Donald Trump isn't right to me. At all."

Good on Belly, which is a real sentence we can write in 2016, because America Is Already Great.