Ronald Reagans failed assassin-turned-folk singer calls NYC a cesspool of crime after canceling Manhattan gig

This is a different kind of cancel culture.Even President Ronald Reagan’s failed assassin-turned-folk singer is too afraid to step foot in the Big Apple — calling it a “cesspool of crime” after canceling an upcoming gig.“I’m afraid of New York City and I just don’t want to go there right now,” John Hinckley Jr.— who tried to kill Reagan in 1981 — told The Post days after pulling the plug on a June show scheduled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.Hinckley announced the performance on X last week but pulled out because “he said New York is a ‘dangerous mess’ and ‘had a bad vibe,'” the event organizers told ticket holders for the unannounced venue in a bizarre email obtained by The Post.The cancellation was first reported by local news outlet Patch.Hinckley claimed his fans urged him not to perform because of violent crime across the city. [They] started contacting me and telling me not to go to New York City because it’s so dangerous,” he told The Post by phone Thursday.

“They’re saying, ‘Don’t do it, John.Because you won’t be safe.’“I watch the news like everyone else and I see how dangerous New York City is with everything going on, so I told the guys who were putting on the show not to do it,” the 68-year-old added. In an interview with The Post last month, Hinckley complained that he was a “victim of cancel culture” after a Connecticut performance was scrapped, and he also gushed about possibly performing in the Big Apple one day.But he said he has changed his mind.“If I’m going to put on a show anywhere, I want it to be safe for me and the audience, and right now with the way New York City is, I don’t think it can be safe for me or the audience,” he said from his Williamsburg, Virginia home.Hinckley, who releases his songs on YouTube to his 37,000 subscribers, previously told The Post more than a dozen of his gigs were canceled because “owners don’t want the controversy.”His sold-out debut g...