19 Celebs Who Refused To Go To The Oscars For Personal, Ethical, And Occasionally Sleep-Related Reasons

    "Let's let the Academy do them, with all grace and love. And let's do us, differently.”

    Amy Glover
    by Amy Glover

    BuzzFeed Staff

    There are more reasons than you might think to avoid the Oscars. For some, it's a question of diversity (think: the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite hashtag); for others, it reads as meaningless industry posturing. And for a sleepy few, it seems, the Academy Awards are an unworthy distraction from a good nap. Here are 19 celebs who boycotted, skipped, or slept through the event, and why:

    1. Anthony Hopkins didn't attend the 2021 Oscars to accept his award for best actor, or travel to any of the designated hubs near his home in Wales. The Oscars did not allow Zoom calls that year.

    Sir Anthony Hopkins in a red robe, with hands clasped, standing indoors near a bookshelf
    UGC / Embankment Films / Angel Films

    Instead, he posted an Instagram video the Monday after the event thanking the Academy and shouting out the late Chadwick Boseman. "The oldest acting Oscar-winner ever, 83-year-old Hopkins was asleep at home in Wales" at the time of the awards, IndieWire reports.

    2. Michael Caine didn't accept his 1987 Hannah and Her Sisters Best Supporting Actor award for scheduling reasons (very Hollywood).

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    Gabriel Kuchta / Getty Images

    He was busy filming Jaws: The Revenge at the time. "I have never seen it, but by all accounts, it is terrible," he later said of the movie he missed the Academy Awards for.

    3. Will Smith decided to boycott the 2016 ceremony due to the Oscars' lack of diversity.

    Side-by-side comparison of two characters portrayed by Will Smith
    Columbia Pictures/ Sony Pictures Releasing / ABC

    “So many different people from so many different places adding their ideas to this beautiful American gumbo,” he told Good Morning America of the boycott. “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.” 

    A 2012 LA Times investigation — run just four years before Smith's boycott — found that Academy membership was 94% white and 77% male. The 2016 acting Oscar nominees were all white.

    4. Jada Pinkett Smith also boycotted the 2016 Oscars, for the same reason.

    Tia Mowry in a white blazer over a top, posing at an event with sponsor logos in the background
    Jason Laveris / FilmMagic

    "Today is Martin Luther King's birthday, and I can't help but ask the question: Is it time that people of colour recognise how much power, influence, that we have amassed, that we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere?" she said in a Facebook video.

    "Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful. So let's let the Academy do them, with all grace and love. And let's do us, differently.”

    5. Eminem was allegedly asleep when he won Best Original Song for Lose Yourself in 2003, as he says he thought he'd never win.

    Three individuals at an awards ceremony, center person speaking at a microphone, all dressed in hip-hop style attire
    Kevin Kane / WireImage

    Luis Resto, the song's co-writer, accepted it instead. 

    6. Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars, and attended the ceremony for zero of them.

    Person in a straw hat holding flowers, standing by signs saying "PLEASE GO AWAY" and "KEEP OUT"
    John Bryson / Getty Images

    "My prize is my work," she had said. She finally appeared at her first ceremony in 1974 to present a memorial award. "I'm living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish," she joked at the event.

    7. Terrence Malick hasn't ever attended the Oscars, partly because of a Vanity Fair interview.

    Man in wide-brimmed hat and blue shirt with pens in pocket, standing outside, facing a person with back to camera
    Gary Miller / FilmMagic

    Producers who had worked with the director spilled on what it was like working with him on The Thin Red Line despite signing NDAs, so Malick refused to go to the Oscars for the Best Director-nominated movie as those same producers would also be at the ceremony. He hasn't appeared at the Academy Awards since, including his 2012 nomination for The Tree of Life.

    8. Kendrick Lamar was absent from the 2019 Oscars, where his and SZA's Black Panther song All The Stars was nominated for Best Original Song.

    Man in a leather jacket and cap walking on the red carpet
    Arturo Holmes / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

    The only information we have is from a rep, who said the absence was due to "logistics and timing." The pair did not perform the song, either at the Oscars or at the Grammys that year.

    9. Paul Newman waited so long to win an Oscar, he was honestly over the whole thing by the time he got one.

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    Art Zelin / Getty Images

    He had gotten six nominations and two honourary Oscars by the time he was finally won for The Color of Money in 1987. He wasn't there to accept his award  — "It's like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents, and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry. I'm tired,'" he said of the experience.

    10. Marlon Brando had more or less figured he was going to win for his role in The Godfather when he asked Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather to go in his place. He asked her to decline the award for him.

    Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone in a suit and Sacheen Littlefeather in traditional attire holding a paper
    Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images /  Paramount Pictures / FilmFlex

    When she read Brando's speech about the mistreatment of Native Americans on stage, she got booed.

    11. Alice Brady didn't show up to accept her Best Supporting Actress award in the '30s due to a broken ankle, so someone else accepted it for her. Except, it turned out that "someone else" was a randomer — and a thief.

    Three vintage film characters, two women seated in an old car, with a man standing outside, all in period attire
    John Springer Collection / Corbis via Getty Images

    Yep, he stole her plaque (at the time, supporting actor winners didn't get a statue.)

    12. Richard Burton knew he wouldn't win in 1966 after four previous nominations and no awards, so his wife Elizabeth Taylor stayed in Paris with him that year out of protest. She won Best Actress that year.

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    Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

    She later refused to thank the Academy for the award.

    13. Spike Lee announced he would be boycotting the 2016 Oscars for its complete and utter lack of diversity via Instagram.

    Man in a suit and hat at an event with people in the background
    Dave Sandford / NBAE via Getty Images

    “How is it possible for the 2nd consecutive year all 20 contenders under the actor category are white? 40 white actors in 2 years and no flava at all," he wrote. 

    14. George C. Scott told the Academy in advance that he wouldn't accept his Oscar for Patton if he won, allegedly calling the whole thing a "two-hour meat parade."

    Man in a suit with a flower on lapel and woman in a fur-trimmed cloak stand together in a vintage photo
    Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

    He won anyway; he was not in attendance. 

    15. Singer Anhoni didn't attend the 2016 Oscars even though she was nominated for Best Song because, unlike other musical acts up for the award that year, she wasn't invited to perform at the ceremony.

    Person on stage behind microphone with a neutral expression
    Christopher Hunt / Getty Images

    "Everyone told me that I still ought to attend, that a walk down the red carpet would still be ‘good for my career,'" the first-ever openly transgender performer to be nominated for the award said at the time. "Last night I tried to force myself to get on the plane to fly to LA for all the nominee events, but the feelings of embarrassment and anger knocked me back... There I was, feeling a sting of shame that reminded me of America’s earliest affirmations of my inadequacy as a trans person. I turned around... and went back home.”

    Dave Grohl, who was not nominated for an Oscar, was also invited to perform that year, while Anhoni was not.

    16. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols became the first ever person to decline an Oscar in the '30s when he boycotted the event due to a writer's strike.

    Black and white photo of Australian opera singer Richard Watson
    John Springer Collection / Corbis via Getty Images

    He was instrumental in founding the Screen Writer's Guild, formed to “correct the numerous abuses to which the screenwriter is subject." He became the Guild's president a year after declining the Oscar.

    17. The Academy could not reach director Jean-Luc Godard via “telephone, by fax, by emails to various friends and associates,” or even through "Fed-Ex" to tell him he'd been given an honourary Oscar.

    Elderly man with glasses looking up, expression contemplative. He wears a scarf and is in a dimly lit setting
    The Image Gate / Getty Images

    Though it's highly possible he may have known about the nomination, it's almost certain the famously anti-Hollywood Swiss director wouldn't have cared. Besides, the then-79-year-old hated long flights, as they meant he couldn't chain-smoke.

    18. Banksy was nominated for Exit Through The Gift Shop, but didn't go as the Academy didn't allow them to wear a mask or otherwise conceal their identity.

    Person in hoodie sitting, anonymous posture, surrounded by urban art and a monkey figure
    Revolver Entertainment

    "The fun but disquieting scenario," the Academy's executive director, Bruce Davis, said, "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?

    19. Think you're a hater? Well, I bet you've never said "I really detest all the mutual congratulation baloney and the invidious comparisons which they evoke," like actor John Gielgud did when speaking of the Oscars.

    Man in a suit with tie, touching his forehead, appears contemplative
    Radio Times / Getty Images

    Despite winning two Oscars, three Tonys, an Emmy, and a Grammy over the course of his career, the actor seemingly hated awards shows. He did not accept his 1982 Oscar for Arthur, probably because of this sentiment.

    Can you think of any other examples? Let us know in the comments below!