List of those celebrities who serve as on-stage "Hosts/ emcees" for the Kennedy Center Honors Gala Tributes

all the way back to 1978 (Carter Administration)

Leonard Bernstein 

Eric Sevareid 

Beverly Sills

Walter Cronkite (1980s-2002)

Caroline Kennedy (2003 - 2012)

Glenn Close (2013)

Stephen Colbert (mid-decade)

Gloria Estefan (2018, and more)

LL Cool J (2019)

year of COVID - David Letterman

Queen Latifah (2024)

tonight (7 Dec. 2025) Donald John Trump