President Donald Trump accidentally embarrassed MAGA actor Sylvester Stallone while riffing about “the last of our movie stars.”
The 79-year-old president detoured into a tangent about Hollywood celebrities during his address to service members from Mar-a-Lago on Thursday.
Lauding the pilots who flew the bombing mission on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year, Trump mused that “a lot” of them had been “handsome.”
Sylvester Stallone, 79, outed himself as a hardcore Trump backer last year, when he named Donald Trump “the second George Washington.” Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“They looked like Tom Cruise, actually, it was very good casting, but I like Tom Cruise. The last of our movie stars probably,” he said.
He paused for a moment before adding, “But, uhh, although we’re honoring Sylvester Stallone in a little while at the Kennedy Center, so I’m going to put him in that same category. We have Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Stallone’s team for comment.
While Trump may be a big fan of the Top Gun star—or anyone resembling him—the affection doesn’t appear to be mutual.
Tom Cruise reportedly declined a Kennedy Center award from the president. Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images
Trump had wanted to unveil Cruise, 63, as one of his Kennedy Center honorees, but the actor declined, The Washington Post reported in August, citing several anonymous Kennedy Center employees.
The president ultimately named Stallone, KISS, Michael Crawford, George Strait, and Gloria Gaynor as his 2025 Kennedy Center honorees.
Stallone, 79, outed himself as a hardcore Trump backer last year, when he delivered a fawning introduction for Trump at a gala after the election, going as far as naming Trump “the second George Washington.”
“We are in the presence of a really mythical character,” Stallone said, adding that he was in “awe” of Trump.
Trump has appointed Stallone, as well as fellow MAGA movie stars Jon Voight, 86, and Mel Gibson, 69, as his “special ambassadors” to Hollywood. The three elderly actors have all been spotted palling around with Trump over the years at functions held at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s comments on Thursday about Cruise and the pilots’ handsomeness are nearly identical to what he said in a rambling speech earlier this month, sans a dig at Cruise’s height.
Trump told the crowd at McDonald’s Impact Summit that he found the pilots “all handsome” like Cruise, but with one exception.
“They looked like Tom Cruise. They really do,” he said. “I don’t want to be a wise guy and say ‘But taller.’ I’m not gonna say that. No.”