Skip to content
News

Trump Dubiously Claims Inauguration Performer Jackie Evancho’s Album Sales Are “Skyrocketing”

PALM BEACH, FL - DECEMBER 28: President-elect Donald Trump prepares to make a statement to the media following a day of transition team meetings at Mar-a-Lago Club on December 28, 2016 in Palm Beach, Fl. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Today, Donald Trump took a moment from his busy schedule of learning how to be president to defend Jackie Evancho, the singer who is one of the only confirmed performers at his upcoming inauguration. This afternoon, Trump—who is definitely not mad that nobody famous wants to associate with him—claimed, somewhat dubiously, that Evancho’s album sales have “skyrocketed” since she was announced as a performer.

Evancho was announced as an inauguration performer on December 14. As Billboard points out, 2016 release Someday at Christmas sold 11,000 copies in the week ending December 22 after Evancho was announced—a leap over the previous week’s sales of 6,000 copies. The week after, the sales dipped a little to 8,000 copies. Someday currently sits at #134 on the charts, in between Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour and a Guns N’ Roses greatest hits compilation.

#134 isn’t nothing, but it’s clearly not near the top of the charts, and the reported sales numbers are certainly modest. However, Breitbart and Fox News had separately written at the end of December that Evancho’s sales were skyrocketing. (They used that phrasing, too: “skyrocketing.”) Trump, who lives in a world of his own Twitter timeline, most likely saw the claim and immediately repeated it.

The original source was a TMZ claim that her album sales have “quadrupled” since she was announced. As the Billboard performance of Someday shows, that math is a little deceptive. You could say her album sales “nearly doubled” after the inauguration announcement, but 6,000 to 11,000 doesn’t lead to a platinum record. Billboard also points out that Someday is a holiday album, and all holiday music sells better at the holidays. Pentatonix’s A Pentatonix Christmas leapt up, too, and they’re not performing at the inauguration any time soon.

Nevertheless, as Evancho’s album drops from that peak, it’s safe to say the sales are no longer skyrocketing. Will they continue to drop? I don’t know, but I bet it will not be the last time Trump tweets about it.