Claim:
Footage from the White House Oval Office’s Kennedy Center Honorees ceremony from Dec. 6, 2025, authentically showed an honoree reacting to a bad smell after U.S. President Donald Trump soiled himself.
Rating:
Context
No evidence exists that Trump actually soiled his pants. Monique Frehley, daughter of 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree the late Kiss member Ace Frehley, was smiling and appeared to react to Trump’s jokes, not anything else.
In December 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump presented Kennedy Center honorees with medals in a White House Oval Office ceremony, a rumor began stinking up the internet. Numerous clips of Trump speaking showed Monique Frehley — daughter of 2025 Kennedy Center Honoree the late Ace Frehley, a member of the rock band Kiss — scrunching her face as though she smelled something bad.
The clips all claimed Frehley had smelled Trump soiling himself during his speech, with one post calling him “DiaperDon.” Snopes readers also searched our site for evidence that Trump soiled his pants.
The rumor was false. There was no evidence that Trump soiled his pants during the ceremony. The video in question just shows just a moment from Trump’s speech. In those moments, Frehley smiled a few times and reacted to his joke. Other honorees standing behind Trump also did not appear to have smelled anything. As such, we have rated this claim as miscaptioned.
We looked for the moment in footage of the event released by the White House. Trump talked about hosting the Kennedy Center Honors himself, a role that is usually taken on by an artist or comedian:
Now we’re going to go to the State Department with Secretary of State, [Marco] Rubio and have a special event, something which was never done before, but we never had a president hosting the awards before. This is the first. I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? They’ll say, “he was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation.” No, we’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible. Some of these people … If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president. But I want to just thank you all, because this is a special night.
The moment takes place at the 9:05-minute mark. Frehley can be seen smiling and pressing her lips together; she was also standing further away from Trump than the angle in the video in question indicates, as seen in this photograph on Getty Images. Other honorees also laughed at Trump’s remarks.
The Kennedy Center honors are given annually to people in the performing arts. Trump awarded medals to several artists this year: actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, actor and singer Michael Crawford, singer George Strait and the rock band Kiss.
This is not the first time Trump’s bowel movements have been a subject of conjecture. Snopes has previously covered a satirical claim about Trump’s body odor, a fake photograph claiming to show diarrhea on Trump’s pants, and numerous other stories on fecal matters.
Sources
Evon, Dan. “Did President Trump Experience Diarrhea on a Golf Course?” Snopes, 10 Apr. 2017, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/. Accessed Dec. 16, 2025.
“Fecal Matters.” Snopes, 29 Nov. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//collections/fecal-matters/. Accessed Dec. 16, 2025.
Liles, Jordan. “Story of Trump Staffers Saying His ‘terrible Body Odor’ Obstructs His Agenda Is Pure Satire.” Snopes, 18 Mar. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-body-odor-presidential-immunity/. Accessed Dec. 16, 2025.
“President Trump Participates in a Kennedy Center Honors Medal Presentation.” YouTube, The White House, 7 Dec. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoEAlhUTVnE. Accessed Dec. 16, 2025.
“Trump Awards Medals to Kennedy Center Honorees in Oval Office Ceremony.” The Associated Press, 7 Dec. 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/07/trump-awards-medals-to-kennedy-center-honorees-in-oval-office-ceremony-00679808. Accessed Dec. 16, 2025.
