Reports have revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump selected actor Tom Cruise to be honored as part of this year's Kennedy Center Honors list, but the Oscar-nominated actor declined the invitation.
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The Mission: Impossible star informed the president that he would not be able to attend the ceremony, scheduled to take place at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington on December 7, due to “scheduling conflicts.”
Anonymous sources at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts confirmed the news to the newspaper. The 63-year-old actor recently released the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible series, titled Dead Reckoning, in May, and is currently working on several projects set to be released in 2026.
Cruise would have been the most high-profile honoree this year, after Trump personally selected five artists he admires: actor Sylvester Stallone, rock band KISS, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, British actor Michael Crawford, and country music legend George Strait.
The Top Gun star has consistently avoided involvement in political matters, choosing not to align with any political party and recently dodging a question about Trump.
During a promotional tour for his latest Mission: Impossible film, Cruise faced an awkward question from a South Korean reporter regarding the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the film’s production. Cruise simply replied, “We prefer to answer questions about the movie, thank you.”
Trump, who serves as chairman of the board for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, is expected to attend the ceremony as host. During his first presidential term, he avoided the event after several artists threatened to boycott in protest of his policies.
Breaking with tradition, the 79-year-old Trump announced the 2025 honorees—the first batch selected under his supervision—during a press conference on Wednesday, instead of the customary formal release.
Trump praised Stallone’s heroic roles in Rambo and Rocky, described Gaynor’s hit song I Will Survive (1978) as “one of those songs that gets better every time you hear it,” and promised that KISS would deliver “something very special” at the ceremony.
He revealed that he was “heavily involved” in the selection process and excluded certain potential nominees, saying, “I rejected a lot… some of them were too woke.”
During the announcement, Trump added, “Just look at the Oscars—ratings are terrible now. All they do is talk about how much they hate Trump. But nobody likes that. People don’t watch anymore. They used to have 45 million viewers.”
He described the Kennedy Center Honor as “one of the highest awards in the performing arts,” joking that he might honor himself next year for his previous work on The Apprentice.
