{"id":56292,"date":"2025-10-02T13:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/56292\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:26:09","slug":"billie-eilish-gracie-abrams-more-join-committee-for-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/56292\/","title":{"rendered":"Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams & More Join Committee for First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBillie Eilish<\/a>, Gracie Abrams<\/a> and hundreds of other artists are taking a united stand against threats to free speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs announced Wednesday (Oct. 1), Jane Fonda is relaunching the Committee for the First Amendment \u2014 an entity that was first founded at the beginning of the Cold War by the actress\u2019 father, Henry Fonda \u2014 with the help of 600-plus creators. In addition to the aforementioned pop stars, John Legend, Barbra Streisand, Janelle Monae, Bonnie Raitt, Finneas, Maggie Rogers and Patti LuPone have also joined the cause, which aims to call out and stand against infringements on free speech.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cToday, we relaunch the Committee for the First Amendment,\u201d reads a statement signed by all of the new committee members. \u201cThis Committee was initially created during the McCarthy Era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs. They targeted elected officials, government employees, academics, and artists. They were blacklisted, harassed, silenced, and even imprisoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,\u201d it continued. \u201cWe refuse to stand by and let that happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tEmphasizing that the committee\u2019s mission is \u201cnot a partisan issue,\u201d the statement ended with a poignant message. \u201cTo those who profit from our work while threatening the livelihoods of everyday working people, bowing to government censorship and cowering to brute intimidation: We see you, and history will not forget,\u201d it concludes. \u201cThis will not be the last you hear from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA full list of signatories backing the cause is available to view on the organization\u2019s website<\/a>, as is more information on the original Committee for the First Amendment. Banding with fellow Hollywood stars such as Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, Henry Fonda originally founded the committee to hit back at the Red Scare, which saw its leader Sen. Joe McCarthy interrogating suspected communist sympathizers in the entertainment industry, the federal government and in society at large.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe relaunch comes as many in the entertainment business have been voicing concerns over perceived threats to free speech, most notably the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September. ABC temporarily paused production on the program after affiliates \u2014 under the veiled threat <\/a>of the FCC revoking their licenses \u2014 stopped airing the show due to comments Kimmel had made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing protests from SAG-AFTRA, the ACLU and countless entertainers, ABC reinstated <\/a>the show after five days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams and hundreds of other artists are taking a united stand against threats to free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,3295,3296,111,139,69,135],"class_list":["post-56292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-pop","tag-music-news","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}