Sylvester Stallone admitted that he never formally accepted President Trump’s offer to name him a “special ambassador” to Hollywood, saying that he only learned about the appointment while watching the news break on television.
“It just happened. I was watching TV one night and they go, ‘So Stallone and Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be …’ And I went, ‘What?’” Stallone said, speaking in an interview published Sunday in The Times of London (via The Independent). “I said, ‘Excuse me? Really?’ Because if they had asked me in the beginning, I would have said, this is not possible.”
In the days before Trump’s second presidential inauguration in 2025, the electee named Voight, Gibson and Stallone as “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood.” The trio of actors, all of whom are vocal Trump supporters, were put in charge of driving business back to the region after losing productions to “foreign countries.”
The announcement, made by Trump on his social media platform Truth Social, did not elaborate further on the processes and responsibilities of the role.
In his Times interview, Stallone said he never expected the special ambassador title to prove useful. He initially explained his misgivings to Trump before being abruptly named an ambassador anyway.
“I guess (Hollywood is) like feudal states. They have their little kingdoms. You don’t go in and tell six studios how to do things. And Mel Gibson and Jon Voight, we’re kind of do-our-own-thing people. No, it won’t work,” Stallone said. “I said, ‘Thank you and ciao,’ because it’s impossible. Hollywood works and it will evolve. It’s corporate and corporate people won’t want to hear me tell them about finance.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Much like Stallone, the special ambassador appointment took Gibson by surprise too. In a statement released shortly after Trump’s announcement, Gibson said that, “I got the tweet at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised. Nevertheless, I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give any help and insight I can.”
On Tuesday, Voight held a press conference explaining that he helped push Trump to support an effort to develop a new federal film tax incentive. The actor has visited the White House on multiple occasions through Trump’s second presidency.
Last December, Trump awarded Stallone with a Kennedy Center Honor, alongside the rock band Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, George Strait and Michael Crawford.
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