NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 28, 2025--
Parade, the premium legacy entertainment and lifestyle brand, released its latest cover story featuring an unfiltered, exclusive interview with actor, producer and director Alan Cumming. In the interview, the Emmy- and Tony Award-winner dishes on the contestants and his costumes on The Traitors, which became the No. 1 unscripted TV series in the U.S., why he could die happy never being in Cabaret again and what it’s like being 60.
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Read the full interview here. Video link here. Notable quotes are below.
On his Emmy win (for The Traitors ): “It’s very affirming about just going with your gut, you know? I loved the show from the start, and it's very reassuring when something you really like and nobody else can understand why you're doing it, all of a sudden becomes this huge juggernaut of a success.”
After his Emmy win, he says, “I just went to a little vegan diner that I love called Vegan Glory. It's just in a little strip mall. I went there with my husband while the Emmys were still on. I got all my glam clothes off. I got changed in the car into my sweatpants. Then the next day I was back in Scotland filming.”
On being 60: "I like being this age. It's very exciting. In the same way that I subvert the form of a competition reality show host on The Traitors, I hope I'm also subverting the expectations of what you're supposed to be like when you turn 60. In terms of myself and my body, everything's still working. I sort of joke that I keep waiting for something to fall off like an old car or to stop feeling horny or to stop being curious. I think that's the thing. I'm just curious about life, and so it doesn't feel like I've changed much.”
On possible future Traitors contestants: “I bet some of the [Spice Girls] would go on. I think it’d be hilarious actually. [Martha Stewart is] very resourceful, very wily. She’s got all the qualities. I think she’d be a hoot. I would have liked Snoop Dogg, but I don’t want him now,” he says, referencing the rapper’s performance at Trump’s inauguration. “What the hell, Snoop Dogg?”
On a Romy and Michele sequel: "I think it's happening. I think it has to do with misogyny in Hollywood that the film has not been made into a sequel already. If it was two men in a successful film like that, they would have made many sequels, and as those men get older we would have thought, 'Oh, they're still handsome,' but there's a thing about seeing older women carrying a film."
On never doing Cabaret again: “I could die happy never being in Cabaret again. People always want me to sing songs from Cabaret. The number of times I'm hosting these awards, and people say, ‘Wouldn't it be a great idea if you sang “Willkommen”?’ I was like, ‘Nope. No. Never.’ Cabaret has been so good to me and changed my life really, but I think I'm a moving-on kind of person. I feel a bit embarrassed by resting on my laurels.”
On queerness and politics on TV: "It wasn't a good look at all for a trans woman of color to be the first person put off [of The Traitors Season 2]," Cumming says about the unconscious biases that led to Peppermint's exit. "That happened, and it wasn't through any sort of blatant malice, but nonetheless, it just hurt. I was hurt by that. It hurt my sense of the way the world should be. But prior to that, I had said, there are not enough queer people on this show. That's why we've got so many queer people on this season, just giving more visibility to queer people. Especially now with what's happening with [Donald] Trump's America. If people are scared of something because they don't feel comfortable with it, or they don't know people who are trans, I think seeing them on television, hopefully, will make you think that they're not so scary, and why are you being asked to hate them so much?”
"I would say I understand how you have got to the place you are," Cumming says, directing a message to the show's more conservative viewers. "I think a lot of people are angry and didn't know where to put their anger and along came this person who offered you places and people to place your anger. But I would ask that if you love The Traitors, and you love the contestants and you love the theatricality, and frankly the queerness, of the show then maybe you should connect that to how you vote. Your government is persecuting some of the people that you love on this program.”
On spilling secrets: "I'm the worst person at keeping a secret," he says. After returning to New York following Season 1's filming, Cumming was having a drink with a comedian at his bar Club Cumming. “He said, 'Oh, I hear you just did this reality show,'" Cumming remembers. "And I'm like, 'Yes, it's such fun.' And he went, 'Oh, I absolutely love Cirie [Fields],' and I went, 'Oh she wins.' I just told him. He still talks about it apparently, that I just ruined it for him. I understand now the water-cooler effect of the show, how important it is for everyone to be watching it together at the same time.”
To read this story, or any of previous Parade cover stories, click here.
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Alan Cumming Shares Secrets From ‘The Traitors’ and Beyond in Parade’s Exclusive Cover Story (Photo: Business Wire)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appeared on Monday to be emboldening defenders of the U.S. central bank, who pushed back against President Donald Trump’s efforts to exert more control over the Fed.
The backlash reflected the overarching stakes in determining the balance of power within the federal government and the path of the U.S. economy at a time of uncertainty about inflation and a slowing job market. This has created a sense among some Republican lawmakers and leading economists that the Trump administration had overstepped the Fed's independence by sending subpoenas.
The criminal investigation — a first for a sitting Fed chair — sparked an unusually robust response from Powell and a full-throated defense from three former Fed chairs, a group of top economic officials and even Republican senators tasked with voting on Trump's eventual pick to replace Powell as Fed chair when his term expires in May.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump did not direct his Justice Department to investigate Powell, who has proven to be a foil for Trump by insisting on setting the Fed's benchmark interest rates based on the data instead of the president's wishes.
“One thing for sure, the president’s made it quite clear, is Jerome Powell is bad at his job,” Leavitt said. “As for whether or not Jerome Powell is a criminal, that’s an answer the Department of Justice is going to have to find out.”
The investigation demonstrates the lengths the Trump administration is willing to go to try to assert control over the Fed, an independent agency that the president believes should follow his claims that inflationary pressures have faded enough for drastic rate cuts to occur. Trump has repeatedly used investigations — which might or might not lead to an actual indictment — to attack his political rivals.
The risks go far beyond Washington infighting to whether people can find work or afford their groceries. If the Fed errs in setting rates, inflation could surge or job losses could mount. Trump maintains that an economic boom is occurring and rates should be cut to pump more money into the economy, while Powell has taken a more cautious approach in the wake of Trump's tariffs.
Several Republican senators have condemned the Department of Justice's subpoenas of the Fed, which Powell revealed Sunday and characterized as “pretexts” to pressure him to sharply cut interest rates. Powell also said the Justice Department has threatened criminal indictments over his June testimony to Congress about the cost and design elements of a $2.5 billion building renovation that includes the Fed's headquarters.
“After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Monday.
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said on social media that the Fed “ignored” her office’s outreach to discuss the renovation cost overruns, “necessitating the use of legal process — which is not a threat.”
“The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s,” Pirro posted on X, although the subpoenas and the White House’s own statement about determining Powell's criminality would suggest the risk of an indictment.
A bipartisan group of former Fed chairs and top economists on Monday called the Trump administration's investigation “an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks" to undermine the Fed's independence, stressing that central banks controlled by political leaders tend to produce higher inflation and lower growth.
“I think this is ham-handed, counter-productive, and going to set back the president’s cause,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard and former top adviser to President Barack Obama. The investigation could also unify the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee in support of Powell, and means “the next Fed chair will be under more pressure to prove their independence.”
The subpoenas apply to Powell's statements before a congressional committee about the renovation of Fed buildings, including its marble-clad headquarters in Washington, D.C. They come at an unusual moment when Trump was teasing the likelihood of announcing his nominee this month to succeed Powell as the Fed chair and could possibly be self-defeating for the nomination process.
While Powell's term as chair ends in four months, he has a separate term as a Fed governor until January 2028, meaning that he could remain on the board. If Powell stays on the board, Trump could be blocked from appointing an outside candidate of his choice to be the chair.
Powell quickly found a growing number of defenders among Republicans in the Senate, who will have the choice of whether to confirm Trump's planned pick for Fed chair.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Banking panel, said late Sunday that he would oppose any of the Trump administration’s Fed nominees until the investigation is "resolved."
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” Tillis said.
Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Penn, said the Fed may have wasted public dollars with its renovation, but he said, “I do not think Chairman Powell is guilty of criminal activity.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered a brief but stern response Monday about the tariffs as he arrived at the U.S. Capitol, suggesting that the administration needed “serious” evidence of wrongdoing to take such a significant step.
“I haven’t seen the case or whatever the allegations or charges are, but I would say they better, they better be real and they better be serious,” said Thune, a Republican representing South Dakota.
If Powell stays on the board after his term as chair ends, the Trump administration would be deprived of the chance to fill another seat that would give the administration a majority on the seven-member board. That majority could then enact significant reforms at the Fed and even block the appointment of presidents at the Fed's 12 regional banks.
“They could do a lot of reorganizing and reforms” without having to pass new legislation, said Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital and author of a book on Fed independence. “That seat is very valuable.”
Powell has declined at several press conferences to answer questions about his plans to stay or leave the board.
Scott Alvarez, former general counsel at the Fed, says the investigation is intended to intimidate Powell from staying on the board. The probe is occurring now “to say to Chair Powell, ’We’ll use every mechanism that the administration has to make your life miserable unless you leave the Board in May,'" Alvarez said.
Asked on Monday by reporters if Powell planned to remain a Fed governor, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council and a leading candidate to become Fed chair, said he was unaware of Powell’s plans.
“I’ve not talked to Jay about that,” Hassett said.
A bipartisan group of former Fed chairs and top economists said in their Monday letter that the administration’s legal actions and the possible loss of Fed independence could hurt the broader economy.
“This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly,” the statement said.
The statement was signed by former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Alan Greenspan, as well as former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin.
Still, Trump's pressure campaign had been building for some time, with him relentlessly criticizing and belittling Powell.
He even appeared to preview the shocking news of the subpoenas at a Dec. 29 news conference by saying he would bring a lawsuit against Powell over the renovation costs.
“He’s just a very incompetent man,” Trump said. “But we’re going to probably bring a lawsuit against him.”
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AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.
FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, right, and President Donald Trump look over a document of cost figures during a visit to the Federal Reserve, July 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
