David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel have hit out at Tom Cruise for his savage Academy Awards snub after the Top Gun star chose to skip Hollywood's night of nights altogether.
Letterman visited his fellow chat show host pal on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and asked the big question that was on everyone's lips last Sunday night: Where the hell was Tom Cruise?
"Here’s something that’s a little sensitive: Tom Cruise," Letterman posed to Kimmel.
"Where was Tom Cruise?"
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Even though his decades-in-the-making sequel Top Gun: Maverick copped a massive six Academy Award nominations, including a best picture nomination for Cruise as one of the movie's producers, the A-lister chose to ditch the 2023 ceremony.
Kimmel didn't dance around the issue and fired back a rather frank response.
"We don’t know where Tom Cruise was. We heard production issues," he told Letterman.
Letterman scoffed, and replied: "What does that mean? That’s nonsense."
Kimmel agreed.
"Exactly. It’s very non-specific," he said. "But we have no idea what happened."
Letterman went on to point out that the Mission Impossible star should have been there to celebrate 'his big jet pack Maverick show'.
"Yeah. It seems like he should’ve been there, but he was not there," Kimmel said.
"Maybe he felt like he wasn’t going to win so he didn’t want to come."
Letterman didn't mince his words, saying to Kimmel: "But between you and me, he should have been there, right?"
"Yeah, of course. He’s the prince of Hollywood," Kimmel answered.
Letterman then turned the Academy Awards snub on its head to congratulate his pal on his hosting efforts.
"More to the power of your success. If 'Mr. Big Shot' was not there, the show was still never more successful," he said.
"Nice going, Jimmy.”
As Cruise opted to skip Hollywood's night of nights, Kimmel and his writing team made the brazen move to add a Scientology joke into his Oscars monologue.
On the night, Kimmel said: "Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene? L. Ron Hubba Hubba, you know what I’m saying?"
Despite reports surfacing ahead of the Oscars that Cruise didn't have time to attend as he was too busy on the set of his Mission: Impossible sequel in Italy, the actor did crop up in London two days after the Academy Awards.
He attended Michael Caine’s 90th birthday party.
So it seems like he can make time for things that are a priority, which sort of adds insult to injury for the Academy.
Topics: Tom Cruise, Celebrity, Academy Awards, Oscars
Rachel Lang