Tom Cruise may be able to race fighter jets and leap off cliffs, but apparently even he can’t dodge a calendar clash. According to The Washington Post, the actor turned down one of the Kennedy Center Honors announced by Donald Trump this week, citing “scheduling conflicts.” Former and current Kennedy Center employees told the outlet they couldn’t share specifics about those conflicts, leaving the exact reason for his absence a mystery. Considering Cruise could theoretically skydive into the ceremony and still make it back for dessert, whatever’s on his schedule must be immovable.
The ceremony’s host—self-appointed Kennedy Center chairman Donald Trump—may also be a factor. Cruise has stayed mostly silent on America’s political climate and even sidestepped questions about Trump’s proposed movie tariffs during a Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning press conference earlier this year, telling reporters, “we’d rather answer questions about the movie.”
The final honoree list features Kiss, Michael Crawford, George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, and Gloria Gaynor—all of whom apparently had no scheduling conflicts. Trump, notably absent from the list, joked, “Next year we’ll honor Trump, okay?” after lamenting that he had never been offered the award before. He also claimed to be “about 98% involved” in selecting this year’s recipients.
Trump made a point of telling attendees how little he supposedly wanted to host the event before “taking one for the team” and doing it anyway. Not everyone was displeased with the arrangement: in a guest monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, comedian Nicole Byer quipped she’d like to see Trump host “the Emmys, the Grammys, a podcast with Theo Von… anything that distracts him from running this country into the ground.”
