August 13, 2025
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Actor and director Sylvester Stallone, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, was named among this year's Kennedy Center honorees. Trump, who chairs the Kennedy Center's board, will host the ceremony in December. Above, Stallone is shown with Trump at the Oval Office in 2018.
President Donald Trump revealed Wednesday that "Rocky" star Sylvester Stallone will be among this year's list of Kennedy Center honorees at the annual ceremony in Washington in December.
Stallone, an avid Trump supporter, will be part of a class that includes country singer George Strait, actor Michael Crawford, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and members of the rock band Kiss. Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have recognized people who have made lifetime contributions to the performing arts in the United States.
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This year's event will be hosted by Trump, who purged the Kennedy Center's board in February and was later elected to serve as the institution's chairman. At Wednesday's event announcing this year's honorees, Trump said he was heavily involved in the selections and that he had "turned down plenty" who were under consideration.
“They were too woke," Trump said. "I had a couple of wokesters."
Stallone, 79, visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, days after Trump won last year's presidential election. The actor and director called Trump the nation's "second George Washington" and compared him to Rocky Balboa, the underdog boxer he portrayed in the Oscar-winning film mostly shot on location in Philadelphia. The statue of Rocky outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art is now a pilgrimage site for fans of the franchise and the home base for an annual Rocky festival. Stallone, who was born in New York and spent his teenage years in Philadelphia, attended the inaugural Rocky Day event two years ago.
"When I did 'Rocky,' if you remember the first image, (it) was a picture of Jesus and it said, 'Resurrection, A.C. Club," Stallone said at Mar-a-Lago in November. "I found the church that had been converted to a boxing ring. So the image pans down from Jesus onto Rocky being hit. And at that moment, he was a chosen person. And that's how I began the journey. Something was going to happen. This man was going to go through a metamorphosis and change lives — just like President Trump."
In January, Stallone was picked among Trump's "special ambassadors" to spur another "Golden Age of Hollywood" and compete with foreign entertainment. Fellow actors Mel Gibson and Jon Voight were also named ambassadors. Stallone visited the Oval Office in 2018, during Trump's first term, for a signing ceremony to mark the posthumous pardoning of former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.
At the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, Trump told reporters he decided to host this year's ceremony at the urging of his chief of staff.
"I said, ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you (fools) asking me to do that. ‘Sir, you’ll get much higher ratings.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m the president of the United States. I won’t do it.’ They said, ‘Please.’ And then (chief of staff) Susie Wiles said, ‘Sir, I would like you to host.’ I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it.'"
The selections this year could signal a political shift in the way honorees are chosen with Trump at the helm of the Kennedy Center.
In July, one Republican lawmaker proposed a bill to rename the storied venue — which has seven stages — the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. And in the One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed into law on July 4, lawmakers set aside $257 million for improvements to the Kennedy Center. Some of that support could be withheld unless the venue's opera house is renamed after first lady Melania Trump, NPR reported.
Among the other honorees in this year's class, Kiss frontman Gene Simmons has had shifting allegiances to Trump. Simmons knew Trump from his stint on "The Celebrity Apprentice" and supported his first presidential run, but later criticized the administration.
"Look what that gentleman did to this country and the polarization — got all the cockroaches to rise to the top," Simmons said during an appearance on Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast in 2022. "Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it's all out in the open because he allowed it."
The Kennedy Center Honors are broadcast annually by CBS in December. Last year's presentation hosted by Queen Latifah drew 4.1 million viewers, which was down from 4.5 million a year earlier. By comparison, this year's Oscar's on ABC drew 19.7 million viewers.
Trump said Wednesday he's aware that the Kennedy Center Honors could appear more partisan.
“I shouldn’t make this political, because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes," Trump said. "So they’ll say ‘Trump made it political,’ but I think if we make it our kind of political, we’ll go up. OK, let’s see if I’m right about that."
