*“Why should I be afraid of Trump when you’re the one who just made me homeless?” William “Byl” Holte says he asked his famous aunt and adoptive mother, Patti LaBelle, during a family confrontation that he now says helped fracture their relationship.
Holte has gone public with his version of a years-long family rift, claiming his support for President Donald Trump played a central role in his estrangement from the Grammy-winning music legend. But LaBelle’s own earlier comments about Holte and their political differences paint a more complicated picture — one involving disagreement, forgiveness, boundaries and, at least at the time, love.
In a lengthy post on X, Holte said LaBelle told him around Christmas 2019 that he had to move out of the home they had shared for 12 years. He described what followed as a painful break with both LaBelle and other relatives.
Here’s what supporting TRUMP cost me:
— Byl Holte (@SirBylHolte) August 20, 2026
My aunt is Patti LaBelle, famous singer AND DEMOCRAT.
Christmas 2019, she had just informed me that I had to move out of the home I had happily shared with her for 12 years.
So when I heard her and my family talking about what a threat… pic.twitter.com/GBQr5Xh8kR
Holte Says the Family Clash Left Him Homeless
Holte recalled hearing LaBelle and family members discussing what they viewed as the threat posed by Trump. That conversation, he said, prompted his pointed response about having just been made homeless.
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“Her family instantly attacked me and threw me out of her house,” Holte wrote.
In the account highlighted by Sandra Rose, Holte also claimed the dispute did not end when he left the home. He said LaBelle later objected to him discussing his life with her publicly.
“My punishment for using my 1st Amendment right this way was LIFETIME BANISHMENT,” he wrote.
Holte says LaBelle still is not speaking to him. His statements represent his account of why the relationship deteriorated; LaBelle has not publicly responded to his latest allegations.
LaBelle Previously Told a Different Story
The political divide between the two is not new to EURweb readers.
EURweb reported in 2020 on controversy surrounding Holte’s Republican politics and his connection to former Republican congressional candidate Dean Browning.
At the time, LaBelle discussed the family tension directly in an interview with OprahMag.com, now Oprah Daily. Her comments acknowledged their political differences without suggesting that simply being Republican was enough for her to stop loving Holte.
“Guess what? I didn’t choose my family. I choose my friends,” LaBelle said. “I love Billy. He has a Republican mind. And, guess what? I don’t. But do I hate him for having the mind that he has? No, I can’t.”
That statement complicates Holte’s current characterization of their falling-out as primarily the cost of supporting Trump.
Patti LaBelle Said She Chose the ‘High Road’
There was another significant detail in LaBelle’s 2020 account: She and Holte were still communicating.
Speaking with Oprah Daily, LaBelle said the two had spoken by phone just hours before her interview. She recalled Holte telling her, “I love you and I’m so sorry.”
“You give people chances, when sometimes, they don’t even know what they’re doing or why,” LaBelle said.
She continued: “So I can’t beat him up for the rest of his life. I decided to take the high road with him by letting him know that you make mistakes — but when my name comes in that mistake, that’s a no-no.”
LaBelle ended that thought with something even harder to reconcile with a simple politics-only narrative: “Certain things happen in life, and I just keep going on, because I love him.”
Holte Says the Estrangement Remains
Six years after LaBelle publicly spoke about forgiveness, Holte is describing a very different relationship.
He says LaBelle continues to refuse to speak to him, even after he stepped away from politics last year. Yet his latest post makes clear that his political convictions remain part of how he interprets the family split.
“I’d rather vote Republican because I WANT to, than Democrat because I HAVE to,” he wrote.
What remains unresolved is precisely why the relationship moved from LaBelle publicly saying she loved Holte despite their differences to the estrangement he describes today. Holte attributes that breakdown largely to politics and his decision to speak publicly. LaBelle’s earlier words suggest the conflict involved boundaries surrounding her name as well.
For now, those two accounts leave a family story with no neat partisan ending. Holte says supporting Trump cost him his relationship with the woman who raised him. LaBelle, when she previously addressed their differences herself, made one thing equally clear: having a “Republican mind” was not, by itself, enough to make her stop loving Billy.
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