While the Hollywood dream looks idyllic to many; the fame, the fortune, the glamour… what happens when that dream turns into a nightmare? What happens when the phone stops ringing? Several stars have been blacklisted from Hollywood over the years for a huge variety of reasons – but why? Find out here…
Brendan Fraser
Brendan is currently enjoying a career renaissance with his Oscar buzz film The Whale, which saw him nominated for the Best Actor accolade and saw us in floods of tears watching him struggling to contain his emotions during various film festival standing ovations. But why did Hollywood ignore him for years?
WATCH: Brendan in tears over incredible standing ovation
Brendan revealed that he thought he'd been blacklisted after accusing the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association of sexual assault, which the latter called a "total fabrication". Speaking to GQ, he said: "I don't know if this curried disfavour with the group, with the HFPA. But the silence was deafening. The phone does stop ringing in your career, and you start asking yourself why. There are many reasons, but was this one of them? I think it was."
Mo'Nique
Mo'Nique was at the top of her game after winning the Best Supporting Actress accolade for her role in Precious, but it appears that her lack of enthusiasm during the campaign led to her being "blackballed". In an interview, she told The Hollywood Reporter: "I received a lot of criticism [around the 2010 awards season] because people felt like I wasn’t campaigning…
Mo'Nique opened up about the situation
"What I was saying was, 'You want me to campaign for an award — and I say this with all the humility in the world — but you want me to campaign for an award that I didn’t ask for.' […] The members of the Academy proved it. They said, 'You know what? We’re going to judge the performance, not how many parties she can come to.'"
She added: "I got a phone call from [director] Lee Daniels maybe six or seven months ago. And he said to me, 'Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.' And I said, 'I’ve been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?' And he said, 'Because you didn't play the game.'"
Director Lee has since apologised
Speaking about the situation, Lee responded to the feature, writing: "Her demands through Precious were not always in line with the campaign. This soured her relationship with the Hollywood community." Lee apologised to Mo'Nique in 2022 after joining her onstage at her comedy show, telling her – and the audience: "I am so sorry for hurting you in any way that I did. She was my best friend. My best friend. Y'all think that 'Precious' was just ... that was God working through both of us. And we gonna [expletive] do it again. I love you. I love you. I love you."
Kevin Spacey
Kevin's Hollywood career ended almost overnight following Star Trek Discovery actor Anthony Rapp's public accusation that Kevin assaulted him while he was underage at a party. 15 other accusers came forward, including eight people who worked on his hit show, House of Cards. Filming was suspended on the show, and Kevin was removed from the project. His upcoming TV show was cancelled, while Christopher Plummer replaced him in scenes for his upcoming movie All the Money in the World. Since the accusations, his career as an actor has effectively ended, having appeared in just four new projects since the allegations.
Kevin's Hollywood career ended almost overnight
Gina Carano
Gina was at the top of her game as one of the main stars of the hit Star War series The Mandalorian, when she was let go after she shared controversial social media posts. At the time, Lucasfilm described her posts as "abhorrent and unacceptable". She was also dropped from her talent agency as a result.
Speaking about the posts, Gina tweeted: "Nowhere did I say Republicans were being treated like Jews in the Holocaust. I shared a meme, I translated into: "Don't let the government pit you against each other or history tells us that could go wrong.'"
Gina was let go from Lucasfilm
Her follow-up project White Knuckle was subsequently cancelled as she was unwilling to comply with COVID-19 mask and vaccination rules. She explained: "After we announced our first project this summer, the Hollywood unions started debating vaccine mandates for cast and crew, and I wasn't into that. I don't believe anybody gets to make your medical choices for you, and I'm not willing to force masks and vaccines on anyone else." She has since starred in a Western, Terror on the Prairie, and alongside Laurence Fox in My Son Hunter.
Katherine Heigl
Katherine was met with widespread criticism back in 2007 while discussing the Seth Rogen film Knocked Up, calling the women in the film "humourless and uptight", adding that it was "a little sexist". She later said that she thought her comments had damaged her career.
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She has since opened up about the situation. Reflecting on it in 2021, she said: "I may have said a couple of things you didn't like, but then that escalated to 'she's ungrateful,' then that escalated to 'she's difficult,' and that escalated to 'she's unprofessional.' What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don't like? […] The more terrified and scared I was of doing something wrong, the more I came across like I had really done something horribly wrong."
Katherine has since spoken about the incident
Speaking about whether her comments damaged her career back in 2016, her co-star Seth said: "I don’t want that to have happened to her at all. Because I’ve said a thousand stupid things, and I really like her. Especially if she is being honest, the only people who, in this situation, should in any way take anything from it is me and Judd. Because we are the ones she was talking about. For other people to not work with her because she didn’t like her experience with us is crazy."
Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd
Director Peter Jackson has opened up about how he was pressured into dropping both Ashley and Mira from the Lord of the Rings trilogy due to pressure from convicted sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, who both Mira and Ashley felt had damaged their careers after they refused his advances.
Mira admitted that she cried when she saw Peter's comments
He said: "I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs… At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us. But in hindsight, I realize that this was very likely the Miramax smear campaign in full swing. I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented women."
Mira tweeted about Peter's comments, writing: "I burst out crying. There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure. Thank you, Peter Jackson, for being honest. I’m just heartsick." Ashley added: "I remember this well."
Ashley was also blacklisted by Harvey
Sondra Locke
Sondra, who passed away in 2018, was a talented actress and director whose career was blighted by her relationship with Clint Eastwood. Speaking about the situation in her autobiography, The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey, she explained: "[The] most damaging to my future was the fallout with Eastwood. This was twofold. First, I had worked with him exclusively for so many years that I had not developed a network outside him and WB, his home studio.
Sandro believed that Clint ended her career following their split
"Second – and most important – was that his obvious enmity toward me had a surefire 'blackball' effect. He didn’t even have to articulate that he didn’t want anyone working with me. They understood the situation. He was a very powerful figure in town and no one wanted to get on his bad side. Why bother? Why get involved? I will always believe that I had many fans in high places, but they were not willing to put themselves on the line. That is very expected in Hollywood."
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