Days before taking his oath of office, President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he is appointing actors Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood.
In a post on his platform Truth Social, Trump said the movie stars “will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
“These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest,” he added. “It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”
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Stallone, 78, Gibson, 69, and Voight, 86, have all been outspoken supporters of Trump since his first presidential campaign in 2016.
Stallone introduced Trump at a Mar-a-Lago gala in November, praising him as the “second George Washington.”
Gibson, ahead of the 2024 election, was not only one of Trump’s most high-profile supporters, but he also criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ intelligence, saying she has the “IQ of a fencepost.”
In 2019, Voight shared his deep admiration for Trump, calling him the “greatest president” since Abraham Lincoln.
It isn’t immediately clear what the role of “special ambassador to Hollywood” entails, but historically, U.S. ambassadors serve as the president’s highest-ranking representative to a country or international organization abroad.
Hollywood is a U.S. city with a population of 70,915 as of 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Of the three nominees, Gibson is likely the most controversial. Just days before Trump’s announcement, Gibson appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, where he discussed his faith, the challenges of creating Christian-oriented films in Hollywood and why he believes Darwinian evolution is a flawed theory.
Gibson, a two-time Academy Award winner who at one point was named the “most powerful Christian in Hollywood,” has faced backlash over alleged antisemitic remarks he made in the wake of 2004’s “Passion of the Christ,” which at the time became the highest-grossing R-rated film in U.S. history, raking in $370.8 million against its $30 million budget.
The “Braveheart” filmmaker was largely blacklisted in Hollywood following a drunken rant during a 2006 traffic stop in which he made claims like “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world!” and other remarks. Gibson later called it an “unfortunate incident.”
In 2021, Gibson was photographed saluting Trump when they crossed paths at a UFC match near Las Vegas, according to The New York Post.
Stallone, raised Catholic, has spoken more openly about his faith recently. He said in a 2006 interview that the Rocky Balboa character from the blockbuster “Rocky” movie franchise was “built on the idea that he was chosen to do something. That’s why the first image in Rocky is the picture of Christ.”
Earlier this year, veteran actor and “Reagan” star Jon Voight told The Christian Post that while he was raised in a Catholic home, he “got a little bit away from it and made some very bad mistakes.”
“And then I got a wake-up call: I know that God is real, and I know that our whole lives are only meaningful in relation to God,” he said in August. “I’m very fortunate to have had that understanding in my life … I’ve had an extended career because of it.”
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