Internationally renowned singer Shakira’s WorldPride concert set for Saturday has been canceled, according to two knowledgeable sources who spoke to the Washington Blade.

LiveNation and the Washington Nationals made a formal announcement Friday afternoon.

Shakira’s concert at Boston’s Fenway Park was abruptly canceled on Thursday reportedly due to issues with the safety of the stage. 

“Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am sad and heartbroken that I will not be able to be in Washington, D.C., with you tomorrow,” said Shakira in a statement posted on social media. “I hope that I can come back to D.C. as soon as I am able. Meanwhile, please know that I am eternally thankful for your unconditional support.”

“Like Shakira’s fans and our friends and family who have traveled from around the world to join us in D.C. this weekend, we are deeply disappointed that unforeseen circumstances have forced the cancellation of both this week’s concert in Boston and tomorrow’s concert at Nationals Park,” said the Capital Pride Alliance in a statement.

It’s unclear whether the WorldPride Welcome Concert that she was headlining will continue.

Friday, May 30

“Center Aging Friday Tea Time” will be at 2 p.m. in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s new location at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Pride Happy Hour” at 7 p.m. at Crush Dance Bar. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite. 

Saturday, May 31

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including Allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Center Aging Pride Theater Outing will be at 2 p.m. at Constellation Theater Company. Guests will get to attend a showing of “Head Over Heels.” This joyous and jaunty jukebox musical features the music of ‘80s rock band The Go-Go’s. Inspired by the epic story of Arcadia, Head Over Heels is a celebration of self-discovery and queer identity, weaving together Renaissance romance and Greek comedy with fantasy and gender-bending in a laugh-out-loud love story. RSVP on the DC Center’s website.

Sunday, June 1

“Prism at Anthem Row” will be at 8 p.m. at 800 K St., N.W. This is a celebration of fashion, art, and fierce self-expression. Whether you’re remixing your wardrobe, voguing your heart out, or just basking in the rainbow glow, this is your space to live out loud, shop sustainably, and show off your true colors. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite. 

“Reston Pride 2025: RISE UP!” will be at 11 a.m. at Lake Anne Plaza. This event will feature local vendors, food, crafts, and a packed entertainment set. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite. 

Monday, June 2

“Center Aging Monday Coffee & Conversation” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Center Aging Advocacy Meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. on Zoom. The purpose of these meetings is two-fold. First, participants are welcome to provide guidance and feedback on programs and services for LGBT older adults here at The DC Center. Second, this group will focus on advocating for LGBT older adults in the District of Columbia. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Tuesday, June 3

Universal Pride Meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group seeks to support, educate, empower, and create change for people with disabilities. For more details, email [email protected]  or the group’s facilitator [email protected]. 

Wednesday, June 4

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Center Aging Women’s Social and Discussion Group will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This group is a place where older LGBTQ+ women can meet and socialize with one another. For more details, email [email protected]. 

“Live Reading and Author talk with Princes Manvendra and DeAndre” will be at 6:30 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This will be an inspiring evening featuring a live reading of “A Royal Commitment: Ten Years of Marriage and Activism,” an intimate Q&A, personal reflections, and a book signing with India’s first openly gay royal couple, Prince Manvendra and Prince DeAndre. To RSVP, visit the DC Center’s website. 

Thursday, June 5

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga with Sarah M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breath work, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.

Most of us who have lived long enough to get nostalgic for our formative years have, by now, watched enough documentaries about a beloved entertainment icon from our past to know what to expect when a new one comes along.

Such offerings are typically slick biographical portraits blending archival material with newly filmed “talking head” reminiscences and commentaries, and perhaps punctuated by eye-catching animations or other flourishes to add an extra layer of visual interest; heavy on the nostalgia and mostly reverent in tone, they satisfy us with pleasant memories, supplement our knowledge with behind-the-history insights and revelations, and leave us – ideally – with a renewed appreciation and a reinforced feeling of comfortable familiarity. Many of them are little more than retrospectives, more glossy tribute than in-depth profile; occasionally, a few go beyond the surface to give us a deeper sense of personal connection with their subject – but rarely enough, even in the best of them, to make us feel as if we know them well.

No matter how many of these docs you have seen, however, or jaded your expectations may be when you approach it, “Pee-wee as Himself” is still going to surprise you.

Directed by filmmaker Matt Wolf, the two-part HBO docuseries – which premiered May 23 and is now streaming on Max – is built around material culled from 40 hours of interview footage with the late Paul Reubens (the creator and performer behind nerdy, manic cultural phenomenon and children’s show host “Pee-wee Herman,” for anyone that needs to be told), and conducts a “guided tour” of Reubens’ singular career in the limelight. The first installment traces a path from his Florida childhood through his early adventures as an actor and performance artist in Los Angeles to his rapid rise to fame and the popularity of his carefully crafted alter-ego; part two continues the story to explore the expansion of his fame through the phenomenon of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” but soon shifts gears to cover his sudden fall from grace after a notorious “public indecency” arrest in an adult theater, and the subsequent accusations of collecting “child pornography” that unfairly branded him as a pedophile in the public eye — and comes full circle to document his return to favor as an underdog hero for the generation that had grown up watching him. 

Besides its detailed chronicle of these already-well-known chapters in Reubens’ life, however, Wolf’s doc (and Reubens, via frequent commentary throughout) delves into publicly uncharted territory to give us a look at something we’ve never been allowed to see before: Paul Reubens himself.

That includes, of course, removing any ambiguity that might remain about the sexuality of the man behind the bow tie, who never publicly identified as gay before his death from cancer in 2023. It’s not so much a “coming out” — after all, he artfully teased his queerness to fans for years — as it is a dropping of pretense. There’s no need for a definitive statement announcing something that everybody already knew, anyway.

That’s not to say he skirts the issue as he delivers his full-frame close-up testimonial to the camera; on the contrary, he reflects often and with bittersweet candor about the carefully-managed matter of his sexuality – or the public’s perception of it, at any rate – with the matter-of-fact eloquence of someone who’s spent a lot of time thinking about it. He openly discusses his choice to keep the closet door closed on his personal life in order to preserve Pee-wee’s ambiguously wholesome yet irresistibly subversive persona in the public’s imagination, and to abandon his openly queer life (as well as a loving long term relationship, one of the series’ biggest “reveals”) to do so.”I was as out as you could be,” he reflects with rueful irony, “and then I went back in the closet.”

Indeed, it’s Reubens’s sexuality that ultimately emerges as the show’s core focus — even more than the rich treasure trove of personal photos, home movies, behind-the-scenes footage, and all the other fan-thrilling delights it provides — and gives it a larger significance, perhaps than even the man himself. It’s a thread that runs through his story, impacting his choices and the trajectory of his career, and reflecting the familiar shared experience of many audience members who may be able to relate; later, it manifests on a societal level, as Wolf and his subject explore the homophobic attitudes behind the legal persecution that would bring his rising star into a tailspin and hang over his reputation for the rest of his life. It serves as both a reminder of the power of cultural bigotry to repress queerness and a cautionary tale about the personal cost of repressing oneself.

A good number of Reubens’ longtime friends (like Cassandra Petersen, aka “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” costar David Arquette, and former “girlfriend” Debi Mazar, who provided support, acceptance, and companionship in the wake of his legal troubles) come along for the ride, offering their own reminiscences and insights into the official record, as well as lesser-known members of an inner circle that comprised the late artist’s chosen family. Yet all these testimonials, authentic as they may be, are not what enable “Pee-wee as Himself” to bring us closer to the real Paul Reubens. It’s Reubens himself who does that.

Maintaining an ambiguously hostile edge in his interviews, bringing to light a clash for control between himself and director Wolf with as much clarity as he illuminates the vast archival material that is shown to document his career, he demonstrates firsthand the need to manage his own narrative, balking at, even openly resisting, certain questions and interpretations that arise throughout. It gives the real Reubens the same vague menace with which Pee-wee was also infused — and also creates a sort of meta-narrative, in which the conflict between subject and director must also be resolved before the story can truly achieve closure, calling into question whether Reubens (a veteran of avant-garde theater and lifelong fan of the circus) might not be adding yet another layer of mystery and performance to his image even as he gets honest publicly for the very first time.

That closure eventually comes in the form of a voice recording made by Reubens the day before his death — after a six year battle with lung cancer (he was a heavy smoker, another personal detail he painstakingly hid from the public) which, save for those in his innermost circle, he never revealed until the end — in which he delivers a final message to the world. With it, he finally accomplishes what he never could during his life, and lets us see, at last, who he was when he wasn’t being Pee-wee.

And it’s a beautiful thing.