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Stallone Reveals He Never Agreed to Trump's Hollywood Ambassador Role
Confirmed
In Short: In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Sylvester Stallone revealed he never agreed to the role of special ambassador to Hollywood that Donald Trump announced in January 2025.
Stallone said he learned about the appointment while watching TV and immediately thought the idea was impossible.
He compared Hollywood to a collection of separate territories, each run by its own ruler, and argued that an outsider cannot walk in and tell six major studios how to operate.
Stallone told The Sunday Times, 'Because Hollywood, I guess it’s like feudal states.
Mel Gibson and Jon Voight were also named as special ambassadors at the time, but Gibson said he saw the news at the same moment as the public.
Voight, however, said at the time that Hollywood had deteriorated and hoped Trump’s help could restore its former glory.
The role was never clearly defined, and the official duties of the job have remained vague ever since.
Stallone said he told Trump the idea was impossible and that he ultimately decided not to take on the role.
While Stallone has distanced himself from the assignment, Voight has remained involved in efforts connected to Trump's Hollywood agenda.
Trump's announcement raised more questions than it answered, as ambassadors are usually sent abroad, not to a neighborhood in California.
The appointment was never a formal government ambassador position with clearly defined statutory powers, but rather presented as special envoys and advisers to the president on Hollywood-related issues.
What this adds
The role of special ambassador to Hollywood was never clearly defined, leaving its duties vague.
Voight has remained involved in efforts connected to Trump's Hollywood agenda, unlike Stallone.
What's confirmed
- Stallone said he learned about the appointment while watching TV and immediately thought the idea was impossible.
- He compared Hollywood to a collection of separate territories, each run by its own ruler, and argued that an outsider cannot walk in and tell six major studios how to operate.
- Stallone told The Sunday Times, 'Because Hollywood, I guess it’s like feudal states.
- Mel Gibson and Jon Voight were also named as special ambassadors at the time, but Gibson said he saw the news at the same moment as the public.
- Voight, however, said at the time that Hollywood had deteriorated and hoped Trump’s help could restore its former glory.
- The role was never clearly defined, and the official duties of the job have remained vague ever since.
- Stallone said he told Trump the idea was impossible and that he ultimately decided not to take on the role.
- While Stallone has distanced himself from the assignment, Voight has remained involved in efforts connected to Trump's Hollywood agenda.
- Trump's announcement raised more questions than it answered, as ambassadors are usually sent abroad, not to a neighborhood in California.
- The appointment was never a formal government ambassador position with clearly defined statutory powers, but rather presented as special envoys and advisers to the president on Hollywood-related issues.
What's still developing
- Nearly two years on, the Stallone ambassadorship is back in the headlines because of how the actor says it began.
- Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, naming Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as envoys tasked with winning back business that he said Hollywood had lost to foreign countries.
- Now Stallone has offered his own account of the appointment in a new interview with The Sunday Times, and it is not the story many expected.
- The Tulsa King star explained that he was blindsided when Trump announced him as an ambassador, along with Mel Gibson and Jon Voight.
- Although Stallone was not convinced by the potential of the ambassadorship, Trump said he’s recently met with Voight about instating a federal film and television tax incentive, which would have to clear several hurdles.
- Who’s been the only one of the three to actually take this “role” seriously.
- “I said thank you and ciao,” Stallone said, describing his response after deciding the assignment was “impossible”.
- The actor had initially been named alongside Gibson and Voight as part of Trump's effort to address Hollywood's decline in domestic production and the industry's growing reliance on filming overseas.
- Stallone's comments clarify that although he accepted Trump's announcement publicly at the time, he ultimately concluded that the role itself was not workable.