{"id":84727,"date":"2025-08-15T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/84727\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:29:07","slug":"tom-cruise-declined-trumps-kennedy-center-honor-invitation-due-to-scheduling-conflicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/84727\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise declined Trump’s Kennedy Center Honor invitation due to scheduling conflicts"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump had tapped Tom Cruise as a recipient at this year\u2019s Kennedy Center Honors,<\/a> but was rejected by the Oscar-nominated actor, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d star told the commander in chief that he couldn\u2019t accept the invitation to attend the gala at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC, on Dec. 7 due to \u201cscheduling conflicts,\u201d the Washington Post reported<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Cruise\u2019s offer decline was confirmed to the outlet by \u201cseveral anonymous sources\u201d at the Center.<\/p>\n

Tom Cruise and Donald Trump shake hands with Bob Costas at the New York Hilton on Oct. 24, 2008. WireImage<\/p>\n

The 63-year-old actor released his latest \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d<\/a> installment, \u201cThe Final Reckoning,\u201d in May and is currently working on several projects for release in 2026.<\/p>\n

Cruise would have led a star-studded list of honorees<\/a> for this year\u2019s event after Trump named five performers he had personal fondness for, which included actor Sylvester Stallone, rock band Kiss, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, British actor Michael Crawford and country music star George Strait.<\/p>\n

The \u201cTop Gun\u201d actor has strayed away from entering the political realm, choosing not to speak about either party and recently sidestepping a question about Trump.<\/p>\n

During the press junket for his latest \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d film, Cruise was grilled by a Korean reporter over the effect Trump\u2019s tariffs had on the movie production.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d rather answer questions about the movie. Thank you,\u201d the actor responded.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump speaks at an event at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on Aug. 13, 2025. WILL OLIVER\/POOL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Tom Cruise attends the \u201cF1: The Movie\u201d European Premiere in London, England on June 23, 2025. Mike Marsland\/WireImage<\/p>\n

Trump, the chairman of the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center, will attend the event as the host.<\/p>\n

He avoided the honors during his first term after artists said they would not attend out of protest.<\/p>\n

The 79-year-old bucked the tradition of announcing the 2025 honorees<\/a> \u2014 the first class for the Center under Trump\u2019s stewardship \u2014 via press release and instead chose to reveal his pickings during a press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Trump gushed over Stallone and his portrayals as the protagonist in \u201cRambo\u201d and \u201cRocky\u201d and called\u00a0Gaynor\u2019s 1978 disco hit \u201cI Will Survive\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cone of those few that get better every time,\u201d and promised that Kiss was \u201cgoing to do something very special\u201d during the ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump revealed he was \u201cheavily involved\u201d in the selection process and filtered out some of the potential recipients.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump attends an event at The Kennedy Center on Aug. 13, 2025. ZUMAPRESS.com \/ MEGA<\/p>\n

Tom Cruise on the red carpet of \u201cMission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u201d US premiere on May 18, 2025. Stephen Lovekin\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cI turned down plenty. They were too\u00a0woke. I had a couple of wokesters,\u201d Trump said during the announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the Academy Awards, it gets lousy ratings now. It\u2019s all woke. All they do is talk about how much they hate Trump, but nobody likes that. They don\u2019t watch anymore. That used to have 45 million people watching,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump called the honors \u201camong the most prestigious awards in the performing arts,\u201d joking he would have to honor himself for his past work on \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump had tapped Tom Cruise as a recipient at this year\u2019s Kennedy Center Honors, but was rejected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,12,88,57186,51879,111,4520,194],"class_list":{"0":"post-84727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-kennedy-center-honors","12":"tag-kennedy-center","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-tom-cruise","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}