Nungesser cancels the state’s $500,000 contract to help cover the New Year’s Eve telecast

quote:

---

Cantrell, who is apparently still sore about Daigle’s cameo appearance at an unpermitted French Quarter worship event in November that flouted coronavirus restrictions, fired off a testy missive last week to the president of Dick Clark Productions, demanding that Daigle be dropped from the New Year’s Eve show.

The mayor’s letter, Nungesser maintains, torpedoed the deal. “The result of her actions,” he said in a statement released by his office Tuesday, “was a decision by Dick Clark Productions to pull Lauren Daigle from the lineup and any celebration from Louisiana to be broadcast worldwide.”

---

quote:

---

What is clear is that Nungesser had lobbied hard for her to be involved, as she is prominently featured in the state’s new tourism marketing campaign. He has now canceled the state’s $500,000 contract to help cover the New Year’s Eve telecast’s production costs. That partnership, he said, was predicated on Daigle’s participation.

“That was the only way we were putting up the money,” he said in a follow-up interview Tuesday. “That was the only way we thought we’d get enough bang for our buck.”

The mayor’s office is now working with Dick Clark Productions to produce the telecast’s New Orleans segment.

---