Would-be assassin-turned-folk singer John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to kill President Ronald Reagan in 1981, insisted he was a victim of “cancel culture” after his latest concert was called off.
The 68-year-old was scheduled to perform at the Hotel Huxley in Naugatuck, Connecticut, on March 30 — 43 years to the day after he attacked Reagan — but the gig was postponed indefinitely, he told The Post.
“I think that’s fair to say: I’m a victim of cancel culture,” Hinckley Jr. opined.
“It keeps happening over and over again.”
A message on the venue’s Instagram posted last week read, “You Guessed It: Postponed Until Further Notice (They’re killin us here).”
Hinckley, who releases his songs on YouTube to his 36,000 subscribers, estimated that a dozen of his scheduled performances were canned because “owners don’t want the controversy.”
“They book me and then the show gets announced and then the venue starts getting backlash,” he told The Post over the phone from his Williamsburg, Virginia, home.
“The owners always cave, they cancel. It’s happened so many times, it’s kinda what I expect,” he added.
“I don’t really get upset.”
Some of his axed gigs include appearances in New York, Georgia, Chicago and Virginia, he said.
Hinckley’s sold-out debut show in Brooklyn in July 2022 — scheduled less than a month after he was fully released from court supervision — was nixed for safety concerns after the Market Hotel received backlash.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he shot and wounded Reagan on March 30, 1981, and spent nearly 30 years in a mental hospital. He was released under supervision in 2016.
“It is not worth a gamble on the safety of our vulnerable communities to give a guy a microphone and a paycheck from his art who hasn’t had to earn it, who we don’t care about on an artistic level,” the Market Hotel wrote at the time.
But the almost-assassin insisted to The Post he’s nothing like the deranged gunman who shot the 40th US president outside the Hilton in Washington, DC.
In the attack, Hinckley, then 25, fired a .22-caliber pistol, wounding the former president, his press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty.
Brady was the most seriously injured of the group, living the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair and becoming a well-known spokesman for gun control before succumbing to his injuries in 2014. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
Hinckley was inspired to attack the president after watching “Taxi Driver” and developing an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, whom he hoped to impress with the shooting.
“I’m just not the person I used to be. I have a different mindset than I did long, long ago,” he said, refusing to elaborate or talk about the assassination attempt.
“I don’t want to dwell on the past,” Hinckley added. “Let’s stay in the present.”
In June 2022, Hinckley was unconditionally released from court oversight, leading him to try to reinvent himself.
These days, he spends his time writing music and hawking paintings of his 7-year-old tabby cat, Theo, on eBay for hundreds of dollars.
“The first painting I did of him was a few years ago. I just keep doing a variation of the same painting over and over again,” Hinckley said of his beloved feline.
He also said he’s written thousands of songs — although he is not a fan of today’s chart-topping hits.
“I don’t listen to modern music. I hate modern music,” he insisted.
“I’m still stuck in the ’60s and ’70s with what I listen to. I just don’t like what’s going on in today’s music. I just don’t like it. I don’t like the rap. I don’t like the pop.”
After his most recent concert was postponed indefinitely, Hinckley announced on X that he was looking to open up his own music venue.
He told The Post his hometown is the ideal spot for a concert hall “where artists and bands wouldn’t get canceled.”
“I’m just caught up in the cancel culture, I guess,” the musician moaned. “It would be a venue for new artists, distinguished artists and they wouldn’t get canceled [at] the last minute like I’m getting canceled.”
When asked where he longs to perform, Hinckley said the Big Apple.
“It’s just kinda where the center of the music scene is or was,” he said. “And there is a lot going on in New York.”
