President Donald Trump’s first round of Kennedy Center honorees will be missing a big Hollywood name.
According to a report from The Washington Post, movie star Tom Cruise, best known for the “Mission Impossible” series, turned down the lifetime achievement award.
Sources told the outlet, on the condition of anonymity, that Cruise declined because of scheduling conflicts.
Trump, who took over the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, said he personally played a major role in choosing this year’s honorees. Earlier this week, he announced the list, which includes country singer George Strait, disco legend Gloria Gaynor, the rock band KISS, Broadway star Michael Crawford, and actor Sylvester Stallone.
The president also boasted on Wednesday that he kept “woke” celebrities out of the nominations.
“They all went through me,” Trump said. “I turned down plenty… I had a couple of wokesters.”
Still, not every honoree has been fully supportive of Trump. KISS frontman Gene Simmons once backed Trump during his first term, but later criticized his impact on the country.
“Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it’s all out in the open because he allowed it,” Simmons said in a 2022 interview with Spin.
