A huge part of awards season revolves around which actors and actresses are snubbed by the Oscars – but rejection can cut both ways.
Many notable Hollywood legends have declined to attend the Academy Awards throughout the gala’s 97-year history. Some of these objectors – notably Will and Jada Pinkett Smith – no-showed due to a lack of diversity among nominees, while others – like Katharine Hepburn – outright rejected the idea of turning acting into a competition. These conflicts can lead to dramatic on-air moments at the Oscars, like when Marlon Brando sent Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather to deliver a statement of protest on his behalf.
Keep scrolling to find out why some of the most famous Hollywood stars have beefed with the Academy Awards over the past century:
Kendrick Lamar
One of the most anticipated moments ahead of the 91st Academy Awards in 2019 was expected to be Lamar performing his track “All the Stars” from Black Panther, which was nominated in the Best Original Song category. However, Oscar viewers were denied any performance of the track at all since Lamar declined to attend the ceremony.
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A source close to Lamar told Variety at the time that the hip-hop icon’s absence was because of “logistics and timing.” As a result, “All the Stars” was not performed alongside the other Best Original Song nominees – and the track also lost its Oscar category to Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” from A Star is Born.
Luckily, Lamar’s fans weren’t robbed of a blockbuster “All the Stars” performance a second time during his Super Bowl LIX halftime show in 2025, as he was joined by SZA to perform the empowering track.
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith
Controversy swelled around the 88th Academy Awards because all 20 acting nominees and four out of the five nominated directors were white. Will’s awards season contender Concussion was among the performances snubbed. After activist April Reign started the #OscarsSoWhite social media movement as a protest, Jada partnered with director Spike Lee to boycott the 2016 Oscars in hopes of pressuring The Academy to diversify its ranks.
Jada’s husband, Will, soon confirmed to Good Morning America that he would skip the 2016 Oscars in solidarity with his wife: “So many different people from so many different places adding their ideas to this beautiful American gumbo.
“At its best, Hollywood represents and creates the imagery for that beauty. But for my part, I think I have to protect and fight for the ideals that make our country – and make our Hollywood community – great.”
Activists and celebrities such as Tyrese Gibson and 50 Cent called on Oscars host Chris Rock to drop out too, but the comedian decided to stay on and made headlines during the ceremony for harshly mocking Jada’s absence.
“Jada said she’s not coming, protest. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada’s going to boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited,” Rock quipped.
The joke reportedly contributed to the bad blood between Rock and the Smiths leading up to the 2022 Oscars, where Will infamously slapped the comic on stage for joking about Jada again. Will was subsequently banned from attending the Oscars for 10 years as punishment.
Spike Lee
Lee had a career breakthrough when his 1983 student film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads won a Student Academy Award. Thirty-two years later, Lee was expected to attend the Oscars in an honorary capacity after receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award months earlier.
Regardless, the filmmaker joined with the Smiths in boycotting the 88th Academy Awards, writing via Instagram at the time: “I would like to thank president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for awarding me an honorary Oscar this past November. I am most appreciative.”
Lee continued: “However my wife, Mrs Tonya Lewis Lee and I will not be attending the Oscar ceremony this coming February. We cannot support it and mean no disrespect to my friends, host Chris Rock and producer Reggie Hudlin, president Isaacs and the Academy. But, how is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? And let’s not even get into the other branches. 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all. We can’t act?! WTF!!”
As a response to the #OscarsSoWhite movement, the Academy announced sweeping changes to its membership protocols in hopes of diversifying its ranks by 2020. The system put restrictions on voting privileges, so that new members would be given ten-year terms to vote on annual nominees. For as long as they remained active in the film industry, their terms could be extended an additional ten years.
Lee went on to win a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for 2019’s BlacKkKlansman, in addition to receiving Best Picture and Best Director nominations that year.
Banksy
A comedy of errors ensued when elusive artist Banksy’s 2010 movie Exit Through the Gift Shop received a Best Documentary (Feature) nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011.
Since Banksy has always refused to ever show their actual face in public, Academy officials had to decide whether to let them wear a mask to the ceremony.
“The fun but disquieting scenario is if that film wins and five guys in monkey masks come to the stage all saying, ‘I’m Banksy!’ Who the hell do we give it to?” the Academy’s executive director, Bruce Davis, told TheWrap.
Banksy was a no-show at the annual Academy nominees luncheon as well as the ceremony itself, which was just as well since Exit Through the Gift Shop lost its category to Inside Job.
Marlon Brando
Perhaps the most notorious snub of all-time took place when Brando declined to accept his Best Actor Oscar for playing Don Corleone in The Godfather at the 45th Academy Awards in 1973.
Brando sent Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather on his behalf to use the time allotted for his acceptance speech to address the plight of her community.
“[Brando] very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather told the restless crowd. “And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry – excuse me – and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”
The live audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion booed and hissed throughout Littlefeather’s speech, while she later reported that John Wayne had to be held back from confronting her.
Brand later told talk show host Dick Cavett that he was horrified by the abuse that Littlefeather endured from the hostile Oscar crowd.
“I was distressed that people should have booed and whistled and stomped, even though perhaps it was directed at myself,” Brando said in 1973. “They should have at least had the courtesy to listen to her.”
Nearly 50 years later, the Academy publicly apologized to Littlefeather and invited her to speak about her experience at the Academy Museum in 2022.
Woody Allen
The filmmaker no-showed the Oscars each of the four times he won throughout his career because he had “no regard for that kind of ceremony.”
“I just don’t think they know what they’re doing,” he said. “When you see who wins those things — or who doesn’t win them — you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is. … I know it sounds terrible, but winning that Oscar for Annie Hall didn’t mean anything to me.”
Allen won both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for 1977’s Annie Hall, as well as Best Original Screenplay once again for 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters and had a second directing win for 2011’s Midnight in Paris. He has received 24 total nominations.
Given his standing in Hollywood these days, it seems unlikely Allen will have the chance to snub the Academy Awards again.
Katharine Hepburn
The four-time Oscar winner’s only appearance at the Academy Awards came in 1974 to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to her longtime friend and producer Lawrence Weingarten.
“I’m living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish,” she joked on the Oscars stage.
Hepburn had previously declined to attend any of the Oscars ceremonies when she was nominated, explaining once that “prizes [meant] nothing” to her.
“My prize is my work,” she was famously quoted as saying.
Hepburn still holds the record for most Oscar wins for a performer, having received the Best Actress Award four times for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981).
George C. Scott
Scott became the first-ever Hollywood star to decline the Best Actor Award for Patton at the 43rd annual Oscars in 1971. He communicated with the Academy before the show to confirm he would not attend or accept any commendation.
His absence made for a tense on-air moment when Best Actor presenter Goldie Hawn excitedly announced Scott as the winner of the category, but there was no one present to accept.
Later, Scott likened the Oscars to a “a two-hour meat parade” and accused the Academy itself of being “offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt.”
“[It’s a] public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons,” he complained.
Academy voters didn’t hold Scott’s tongue-lashing against him, as he was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in The Hospital the very next year (though this time Gene Hackman won for The French Connection).
Paul Newman
Newman was understandably gun-shy about the Oscars since he lost seven times throughout his career. While it looked like Newman would finally win Best Actor for 1986’s The Color of Money, he wasn’t taking any chances and declined to attend.
Another strange on-air moment ensued when Bette Davis was forced to present the Best Actor Oscar to then-Academy president Robert Wise.
Newman explained that he was skipping the fateful night because he wasn’t willing to go through the disappointment of potentially losing once again.
“It’s been a long time. It’s like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents and you say, ‘I’m terribly sorry. I’m tired,’” he joked to Film 87 host Russell Harty weeks before the 1987 Oscars.
Michael Caine
Caine was a rare case where the opportunity to attend the 59th Academy Awards in 1987 was taken completely out of his hands. Although he was the favorite to win Best Supporting Actor for his work in Hannah and Her Sisters, Caine was contractually obligated to film Jaws: The Revenge and producers wouldn’t release him to attend the ceremony.
The legendary actor seemingly had no regrets about missing his big night, as he remembered that period in his life as “the time when I won an Oscar, paid for a house and had a great holiday” in his 1992 autobiography What’s It All About?.
Jaws: The Revenge became one of the biggest Hollywood bombs of the ’80s when it was released in July 1987, though Caine once again took the career setback in stride.
“Somebody said to me, ‘I saw that Jaws 4. It stinks,’” he told Australian TV host Andrew Denton. “I haven’t seen it, but I have seen the house it bought my mother, and it’s marvelous!”
Conan O’Brien hosts the 97th Academy Awards, airing live on ABC Sunday, March 2, from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
