Mission Impossible actor Tom Cruise allegedly turned down a Kennedy Centre Award from US President Donald Trump. The prestigious accolade is given to people in the performing arts for their lifetime contributions to American culture. According to the Washington Post, the 63-year-old Top Gun actor declined due to “scheduling conflicts.”
However, employees at the Kennedy Centre told the publication Cruise didn’t collect the award to “shun Trump,” after the President was said to have actively chosen him for the accolade. Instead, Trump bestowed honours on KISS, Michael Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, and George Strait.
Rather than the Kennedy Centre revealing the names through a press release, the President read out the honourees himself. He said he was “very involved” in selecting the recipients.
While handing out the awards, he thanked Stallone and branded him one of the best actors of his generation.
Trump said, pointing to Rocky and Rambo films, which made Stallone a household name: “Nobody else could have done what he did. They tried, and it didn’t work out too well.”
The world leader added: “I’ll never forget I was a young guy and I went to see a thing called Rembo. I said, ‘This movie is phenomenal. What the heck.'”
Trump said of music legend Gloria’s hit song ‘I Will Survive’: “I have heard it, like everyone else here, thousands of times. And it is one of those few that get better every time you hear it,’ he said. ‘And no one can sing it like her.”
Meanwhile, Cruise is known to keep away from politics and usually opts to support war veterans, the military and the Church of Scientology, which he is a part of.
Cruise has been a member of the church since the 1980s, when his ex-wife, Mimi Rogers, introduced him to it. He joined around the same time his classic film Top Gun was released in cinemas.
Express.co.uk has contacted Cruise’s representatives for comment.
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