Complete list of people banned from the Oscars ceremony: Will Smith, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby...
Will Smith became the sixth person to be banned from Academy events after the slap on Chris Rock at the 2022 ceremony.
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Last year’s Oscars ceremony will go down in infamy due to the actions of one of the night’s big winners, Will Smith.
The 54-year-old picked up his first Oscar for Best Actor at the 2022 ceremony for his portrayal of Serena and Venus Williams’ father in the biopic ‘King Richard.’ However it was a shocking on-stage attack on comedian Chris Rock that stuck in fans’ minds.
In the days after, Smith was banned from the Oscars and all other Academy events for the slap on Rock. A statement from AMPAS explained that the ceremony had been “overshadowed by the unacceptable and harmful behaviour we saw Mr Smith exhibit on stage”.
Smith’s actions may have been unlike anything seen previously, but he is not the first person to have been banned from the Oscars ceremony. Here are the six other big names to have been black-listed from the biggest night in Hollywood:
Richard Gere – The ‘Pretty Woman’ star was one of the biggest film stars of the early 1990s but he fell foul of the Academy after denouncing the Chinese government while presenting at the 1993 Oscars.
Gere criticised the “horrendous, horrendous human rights situation” in China-occupied Tibet, earning him a 20-year ban from the Oscars ceremony.
Carmine Caridi – The first person to be given a permanent ban from the Academy, Caridi was found to have illegally shared VHS of upcoming, unreleased movies with a friend. The movie screeners were distributed to Academy members for voting purposes and Caridi was investigated by the FBI on civil charges of copyright infringement.
The Godfather actor passed away in 2019 at the age of 85 and remained banned from the Academy until his death.
Bill Cosby – Disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby has won five Primetime Emmy Awards and eight Grammy Awards, but fell from stardom with his arrest and subsequent conviction for sexual assault in 2014.
The Academy issued a lifetime ban to Crosby in 2018, writing in a statement: “The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity.”
Roman Polanski – In the same year as Crosby was expelled, the Academy decided to take the same steps against Roman Polanski. The director had fled the United States after allegations of sexual assault against a minor in 1977 but was able to continue his membership for decades after, even winning the Oscar for Best Director in 2003.
Harvey Weinstein – Another huge name in Hollywood finally exposed in the mid-2010s, Weinstein was at the centre of the #MeToo movement. Weinstein’s conviction on four counts of rape and one of sexual assault brought about his expulsion from the Academy.
In issuing the ban, AMPAS wrote that Weinstein had behaved in a way that was “repugnant, abhorrent, and antithetical to the high standards of the academy and the creative community it represents.”
Adam Kimmel - Before Smith, the most recent removal from the Academy was cinematographer Adam Kimmel. He was a prominent name in Hollywood and had worked with some of the industry’s biggest stars, but two years ago it emerged that he had twice been charged with sexual crimes against underage girls. He was expelled from Academy membership in 2021 for violating the code of conduct.