SAD TO SEE: Tom Cruise Declines Prestigious Award From President Trump

This is really sad to see, but I want to give you my take on what might be going on here….

First the news.

President Trump reportedly offered Tom Cruise a prestigious award from the Kennedy Center and Cruise reportedly rebuffed the award citing “scheduling conflicts”:

Here are more details, from the NY Post:

President Trump had tapped Tom Cruise as a recipient at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, but was rejected by the Oscar-nominated actor, according to a new report.

The “Mission: Impossible” star told the commander in chief that he couldn’t accept the invitation to attend the gala at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, DC, on Dec. 7 due to “scheduling conflicts,” the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

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Cruise’s offer decline was confirmed to the outlet by “several anonymous sources” at the Center.

The 63-year-old actor released his latest “Mission: Impossible” installment, “The Final Reckoning,” in May and is currently working on several projects for release in 2026.

Cruise would have led a star-studded list of honorees for this year’s event after Trump named five performers he had personal fondness for, which included actor Sylvester Stallone, rock band Kiss, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, British actor Michael Crawford and country music star George Strait.

The “Top Gun” actor has strayed away from entering the political realm, choosing not to speak about either party and recently sidestepping a question about Trump.

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During the press junket for his latest “Mission: Impossible” film, Cruise was grilled by a Korean reporter over the effect Trump’s tariffs had on the movie production.

“We’d rather answer questions about the movie. Thank you,” the actor responded.

The Hollywood Reporter noted some of the other award recipients will include:

Instead, Trump unveiled a list of 48th Kennedy Center Honors recipients on Wednesday that included the glam metal band Kiss, Broadway star Michael Crawford, country music legend George Strait, singer Gloria Gaynor and, in the film actor category, Sylvester Stallone (who was also on Trump’s list of “special ambassadors” to Hollywood — along with Mel Gibson and Jon Voight — that Trump announced at the start of his second term).

Ok, now my take…

I think Tom Cruise is a good guy.

I think he’s made a colossal life mistake with the whole Scientology thing, but I think deep down he’s a good guy.

I think he’s deeply devoted to his craft (making movies) to an almost extreme fashion — there are countless reports that he refuses to even accept a stuntman because he’s so dedicated to his craft and to making it perfect.

So I think not accepting the award probably comes down to a couple things….

I think it very well could be “scheduling conflicts”.  Even when you’re Tom Cruise, movie sets don’t wait on anyone, and Tom is busy working on his new film.  And in his mind, that takes priority overall else.

The second thing is closely related, which is the fact that I think he doesn’t want anything to get in the way of making movies.

And I think regardless of what he thinks of President Trump personally, I think he probably views this as an unnecessary distraction.

I’m not saying Tom Cruise loves Trump or MAGA, I really have no idea.

In fact, if you really pressed me, I would bet that Tom Cruise doesn’t spend one minute of any day thinking about politics of any kind.  His mind is entirely on movies.

So that’s my take.

I’m not making excuses for him, and I think he’s made some really poor choices in his life regarding Scientology and basically abandoning his one daughter.  So I’m not here to be a Tom Cruise apologist.

But that’s my take.

What do you think?