SCOOP: Why Tom Cruise turned down the Kennedy Center's top honor

The Kennedy Center unveiled the latest winners of its top honor, including George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, Kiss, and actor-singer Michael Crawford.

Missing among that group? Tom Cruise.

Cruise’s absence led to an immediate firestorm of misinformation, which implied that the legendary actor turned down President Donald Trump and Ambassador Richard Grenell for anything other than a “scheduling conflict.”

The reasoning, Kennedy Center insiders told the Washington Reporter, is straightforward: a scheduling conflict.

Sometimes, it turns out, a scheduling conflict is just that.

Cruise “wants it next year because he’s getting a massive Academy Award for lifetime achievement this year and wants to spread them out,” a high-ranking Kennedy Center official told the Reporter.

Despite some Cruise-related scuttlebutt, the rollout of the center’s awards was otherwise smooth. In fact, Trump is a clear fan of the center, and of Grenell’s leadership. He just visited the center again this week, marking yet another visit by the president, who is also the Chair of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors.

During Trump’s first term, high-ranking Hollywood icons frequently shunned appearing with him. Now, Trump tapped Hollywood icons — including Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone — as special ambassadors to America’s cultural center.

Leading Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) have faced scrutiny amidst California’s inability to rebuild much of Hollywood following devastating fires earlier this year.

The View’s Ana Navarro immediately urged Gaynor to reject the honor, but there are no indications that that is in the works. The Reporter previously covered another recent bout of misinformation regarding the Kennedy Center and singer Ben Folds, who is currently boycotting the center.

Grenell had a simple reason for why Folds is not currently welcome back. “Ben Folds was a disastrous artistic director. He would have been fired if he had stayed 1 day under my leadership,” he explained. “He was paid $200k by the people before me to do a total of 3 shows - and all 3 shows netted $35k in total, BEFORE he was paid. So he can never return to the Kennedy Center under my tenure because his ideas are not supported by the market. In fact, he’s been rejected by the community — he couldn’t sell tickets or get sponsors.”