Tom Cruise to Katherine Hepburn, celebrities who declined Kennedy Center honor

Hollywood icon Tom Cruise is currently making headlines for reportedly declining the Kennedy Center Honor. The 63-year-old Cruise, who is considered one of the biggest movie stars in the world, was selected to be presented with the distinguished award, which "recognises and celebrates individuals whose unique artistic contributions have shaped our world." Interestingly, Tom Cruise is not the first person to have turned down the Kennedy Center Honor, as other renowned personalities have also declined the prestigious award.

Tom Cruise, who is widely known for the Mission: Impossible movie franchise, in his long and successful acting career, has collaborated with several extraordinary and celebrated filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola. According to The Washington Post, as reported by Bang Showbiz, Kennedy Center employees informed that the Top Gun: Maverick star, Tom Cruise, had to decline the award because of scheduling issues.

President Donald Trump, who revealed the names of the Kennedy Center Honor recipients on August 13, 2025, also announced that other prominent personalities, such as actor Sylvester Stallone, the hard rock band Kiss, actor and comedian Michael Crawford, singer Gloria Gaynor, and country music singer George Strait will be honored at the ceremony which is set to happen in December. Trump, who confessed that he himself always wanted a Kennedy Center Honor award, said:

"I waited and waited and waited, and I said, ‘The hell with it, I’ll become chairman and I’ll give myself an honour ... Next year, we’ll honour Trump, okay?"

Trump was also quite involved in the selection process of the recipients, stating:

"I would say I was about 98 percent involved. They all went through me. I had a couple of wokesters. Now, we have great people. This is very different than it used to be, very different."

As per Deadline, the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, which is set to take place on December 7, 2025, will be hosted by Donald Trump himself. It will be aired on CBS and later on will be streamed on Paramount+. However, while the Vanilla Sky star, Tom Cruise, has declined the Kennedy Center Honor award, he will be receiving an honorary Oscar at the 2025 Governors Award on November 16, 2025.

Other renowned personalities besides Tom Cruise who turned down the Kennedy Center Honor

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As mentioned earlier, it is not only Tom Cruise who declined the Kennedy Center Honor award, but legendary American actress Katherine Hepburn at first had also turned down the prestigious award. Later on, she had a change of heart for the 1990 event. Besides Cruise and Hepburn, American actress and singer Doris Day had also rejected the Kennedy Center Honor award as she did not want to fly from LA to Washington.

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