Celebrities Who Were Banned From The Oscars

This article contains discussions of child abuse and sexual assault.

Unless you're a generally well-behaved person, it's possible that someone reading this has been banned from a venue or establishment. Maybe you tried to free the orcas at Sea World, decided to take home some items without paying at a Walmart, or got too rowdy at an Outback Steakhouse one night when you and your coworkers went out for a few dozen beers. Things happen. What does it take, though, to get banned from even attending the Academy Awards by its governing body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

The truth is that there's a wide and admittedly random spectrum of ways to get banned from the Academy Awards. Some of them, you should know, are dark and involve actual crimes. Others are a bit more spurious or subjective, but still ... here's everyone, as of this writing, that has been banned from the Oscars, as well as whether or not they've ever been permitted to make a grand return to the annual celebration of movies.

In 2004, Carmine Caridi — an actor known for projects like "The Godfather Part II" and its much-maligned trilogy capper "The Godfather Part III — was expelled from the Academy, incredibly becoming the first person to get publicly booted from the organization. What offense did he commit? Caridi, who passed away in 2019 after a fall, shared top-secret screeners for several 2004 nominees like "Big Fish" and "The Last Samurai." See, Academy members these days watch their screeners on a proprietary streaming service, but back in Caridi's heyday in 2004, people got VHS tapes or DVDs... and he distributed them, earning a ban from the Academy. Worse still, he got a kid named Russell Sprague to make copies that he could give out. The two were ultimately sued by Sony and Time Warner for their offenses; Sprague died of a heart attack in 2005 and avoided further action, and Caridi's case just sort of went away.

Caridi, hilariously, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 and presented his defense thusly: "Let me tell you something. Everybody does it, OK?" Frankly, the guy really stuck to his guns, saying, ""I sent screeners to people, besides my brother and sister, who couldn't afford them. I made a lot of people happy." He did not, however, make the Academy happy at all.

It honestly shouldn't surprise anybody that, at a certain point, Bill Cosby's membership in the Academy was fully revoked. Cosby, known for the eponymous "Cosby Show," his stand-up career, and drugging and assaulting a devastatingly large number of women, was convicted on counts of drugging and assaulting one of his victims, Andrea Constand, in 2018. His case was ultimately overturned when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared that his initial trial was invalid, but that didn't change the Academy's ruling on his membership. Though Cosby was a TV star and never won an Oscar, he was still a massive pop culture titan ... so that's why he was even part of the Academy in the first place.

In a statement provided to Entertainment Weekly, the organization said, "The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy's values of respect for human dignity." That same sentiment actually extended to a different alleged sex offender who was expelled from the Academy around the same time, but we'll circle back to him.

To be fair, Richard Gere is the only person on this list who is not, as of this writing, currently banned from the Academy. While he was presenting an award for best art direction during the 1993 Oscars ceremony, Gere got political about the situation at the time in China and Tibet, and the Academy did not like it.

During his on-air time, Gere turned his attention to what he called "a horrendous, horrendous human rights situation there is in China," clarifying, "Not only towards their own people, but to Tibet as well" (via People Magazine). He continued:

"If something miraculous, and really kind of movie-like, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth, and a kind of sanity to [former leader of the People's Republic of China] Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing that he will take his troops, and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow these people to live as free independent people again."

That's right: this is what got Gere banned from the Academy Awards for well over a decade. Gere didn't return until 2013, presenting awards for original score and original song alongside his "Chicago" castmates Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Queen Latifah ... which is particularly funny considering that "Chicago" won best picture in 2003. We can assume, at this point, that Gere is allowed to go back again if he so desires.

Before his expulsion from the Academy, cinematographer Adam Kimmel found success in Hollywood thanks to his work on projects like "Lars and the Real Girl," "Never Let Me Go," and "Capote." Then, in 2021, Kimmel was kicked out of the Academy for violating that code of conduct they mentioned alongside Bill Cosby's name.

Kimmel's alleged crimes involve underage girls and rampant sexual misconduct, to the point where we will not reprint any of the specifics here. (What is striking, though, is that Kimmel was a registered sex offender for decades and still managed to gain membership into the Academy in the first place.) Still, while Kimmel is certainly the least well-known person on this list of folks banned from the Oscars, it's important to note that he was expelled from the organization ... 

Roman Polanski, the director known for projects like "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," has been plagued with scandal since 1977 ... when he was arrested in the United States on the charge of drugging and sexually assaulting an underage girl. Very long story short, Polanski fled to France to avoid actually serving time for his alleged crimes, and as of this writing, he almost never leaves the country, apparently out of fear that he would be extradited to the U.S. and face legal consequences.

That's precisely why this controversial director — whose win at the 2020 César Awards prompted a walkout by actresses like Adèle Haenel and director Céline Sciamma — was banned from the Academy in 2018. According to the Los Angeles Times, Polanski and his legal team threatened to sue unless Polanski received a hearing. "We are not here contesting the merits of the expulsion decision, but rather your organization's blatant disregard of its own Standards of Conduct in, as well as its violations of the standards required by California Corporations Code," his attorney Harland Braun wrote to the Academy. "The only thing we're asking for is a hearing, a chance to present his side." As of this writing, Polanski, who has a best director Oscar for 2002's "The Pianist," remains banned from the Academy.

We all know this one by now, but let's go over the whole thing anyway. During the 2022 Academy Awards, presenter Chris Rock took the stage to present the award for best documentary feature. While he presented, he made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith, accompanying her husband — Will Smith, a best actor nominee for "King Richard" — and how he was excited to see her in a sequel to Demi Moore's movie "G.I. Jane" due to her bald head. Pinkett-Smith has been open about suffering from alopecia, and she looked pretty dismayed ... and Smith took it upon himself to take action. He stormed the stage, slapped Rock across the face, and returned to his seat, yelling at the comedian to keep Pinkett-Smith's "name out [his] f***ing mouth."

The weirdest part of all of this is that, shortly after smacking a guy in the face on live TV, Smith won the Oscar for playing Richard Williams (father of tennis stars Venus and Serena). Smith resigned from the Academy in the wake of the incident, but they also decided to institute a 10-year ban (per BBC News), preventing Smith from even attending the ceremony until 2032 (non-members can, and do, attend the Oscars). The whole thing was, frankly, an unmitigated disaster, and one can imagine that there were much better ways for Smith to handle Rock's perceived slight against his wife.

As with Bill Cosby, you likely know exactly why and how disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was expelled from the Academy. The center of one of the biggest scandals in the entertainment industry in recent memory, Weinstein, who once helmed the super-powerful production company The Weinstein Company with his brother Bob, was revealed to be one of Hollywood's most prolific sexual predators in a report in the New York Times by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. (This precise report was later the subject of a 2022 drama, "She Said.") Scores of actresses, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Julia Ormond have accused Weinstein of rampant wrongdoing, and a ton of allegations surfaced in the wake of this report that he forced actresses into compromising situations by offering them roles.

The Academy expelled Weinstein from their ranks in 2017, and as of this writing, he's incarcerated at Rikers Island as he awaits yet another trial in New York.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).