An unidentified heckler interrupted actor Vanessa Williams as she performed the U.S. national anthem before Sunday’s NBA game in London between the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies, shouting, “Leave Greenland alone!”
Williams sang The Star-Spangled Banner just before tipoff at the sport on the O2 Arena and as she neared the top of the song, the heckler’s interruption was met with some applause from the gang.
Williams was unfazed by the outburst and accomplished the song.
Frustrated sports fans in arenas across Canada have occasionally booed loudly while the U.S. national anthem is played at NHL and NBA games previously few years — even during a WWE Elimination Chamber event in Toronto in March — in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposed tariffs on the country and his comments about making Canada the “51st state.”
Trump himself received a mixed response from the gang at Yankee Stadium in Recent York in September. In the course of the U.S. national anthem, Trump was shown on the stadium Jumbotron and received a mixture of boos and cheers from the gang.
Trump has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said last week that anything lower than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands can be “unacceptable.”
During an unrelated event on the White House about rural health care, he recounted Friday how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
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“I could try this for Greenland too,” Trump said. “I could put a tariff on countries in the event that they don’t go together with Greenland, because we want Greenland for national security. So I could try this.”
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington on Jan. 14 with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
That encounter didn’t resolve the deep differences, but did produce an agreement to establish a working group — on whose purpose Denmark and the White House then offered sharply diverging public views.
European leaders have insisted that it is just for Denmark and Greenland to determine on matters in regards to the territory, and Denmark said it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in co-operation with allies.
Asked during an interview with the Atlantic what the U.S. military motion in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They’re going to must view it themselves. I actually don’t know.”
“We do need Greenland, absolutely. We’d like it for defence,” Trump added.
Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted a photograph on X of the territory covered with the American flag, writing, “SOON.”
Greenland’s leader said “enough is enough” after Trump renewed his threats to take over the territory.
“Threats, pressure, and talk of annexation don’t belong anywhere between friends,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on Facebook on Jan. 4. “That’s not the way you discuss with individuals who have repeatedly shown responsibility, stability and loyalty.
“Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more hints. No more fantasies about annexation.”
Nielsen said Greenland is “open for dialogue” and “open to conversations.”
He also addressed the photo that Miller shared on social media, writing, “At the beginning, let me say calmly and clearly, that there’s neither reason for panic nor for insecurity.”
“The photo shared by Katie Miller of Greenland being produced wrapped in an American flag doesn’t change anything. Our country is just not on the market and our future is just not determined by social media posts,” he wrote.
“But the image is disrespectful. The relations between countries and persons are based on respect and on international law and never on symbolic markings that ignore our status and our rights.
“There’s no have to panic. But there’s good reason to talk up against the dearth of respect.”
Trump has repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically situated Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
In December 2025, Trump said the U.S. is not keen on Greenland for its mineral wealth.
“We’ve so many sites for minerals and oil and all the pieces. We’ve more oil than another country on the planet,” Trump said. “We’ll must work all of it out.”
Trump initially voiced his interest in Greenland in 2019 during his first term in office. He said Greenland was “hurting Denmark very badly” and costing it US$700 million a yr. His solution was to have the US acquire Greenland, calling it “a big real estate deal.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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