Kelsey Grammer banned from talking about Trump support in interviews, reporter claims

A BBC interviewer has said that the Paramount PR team did not want him to press Kelsey Grammer on his support for Donald Trump.

Grammer appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to promote the Frasier reboot when presenter Justin Webb started to ask him about his ongoing support for the former President.

“You were a Trump supporter, I’m fascinated to know if you still are?” Webb asked the actor.

“I am, and I’ll let that be the end of it,” responded Grammer.

Following the interview, Webb added: “I should stress that he was perfectly happy to talk about why he supports Donald Trump and still does in the coming election. The Paramount+ PR team, less so.”

Grammer is a high-profile supporter of the Republican Party and has confirmed that he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

He is the only core cast member who has reprised his role in the Paramount+ sequel series, which follows Frasier as he teaches at a university in Boston – the setting where the character was originally introduced in 1980s sitcom Cheers.

Last month, Grammer revealed that he “did his best” to convince David Hyde Pierce to return to the role of Niles Crane for the reboot, but his efforts fell on deaf ears.

In October, the creators of the show revealed that their original idea for the return also involved David Hyde Pierce returning.

Alongside Grammer, the revival stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as university professor Alan, Jack Cutmore-Scott as Frasier’s son Freddy, Anders Keith as Frasier’s nephew David, Jess Salgueiro as Eve and Toks Olagundoya as Olivia.

In a four-star review, NME wrote: “Yes, the genius that is David Hyde Pierce’s Niles is sorely missed, but Frasier is still as tasty as a tossed salad and scrambled eggs.”

This week, Trump responded to public criticism from Robert De Niro, dismissing the actor as “a total loser” whose acting talents “have greatly diminished”. De Niro had used an acceptance speech at the Gotham Awards to say that Trump had “lied to us 30,000 times during his four years in office”.