UFC Freedom 250 on June 14—set for the South Lawn and timed with Donald Trump’s 80th birthday—has run into a star-power problem as high-profile Hollywood names, including Adam Sandler, Tom Brady, Jared Leto and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, reject invitations to
The octagon is already up on the South Lawn. Now the difficult part begins: finding the famous faces meant to match a fight night billed as historic—right down to the ringside glamour.
UFC Freedom 250 is scheduled for June 14. timed to coincide with President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. and it has been pitched as a glitzy White House showpiece. But in the days before the opening bell. organizers are dealing with what one behind-the-scenes effort has come to look like: a widening refusal from major celebrities and top sports figures to attend.
UFC president Dana White and White House staff have been working to build a guest list with the scale of a reported $60 million production. White said he personally extended invitations to several Hollywood icons and sports legends. including Adam Sandler. Tom Brady. Jared Leto. and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Yet the outreach has landed with a thud. Representatives for Johnson, Sandler, and Leto confirmed they will not be attending, while representatives for the other stars have not responded.
The celebrity cold shoulder arrives as a broader pattern of hesitation has followed Trump’s second-term events. It mirrors the collapse of a concert series planned for the National Mall as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. That bill fell apart this week after nearly all acts pulled out. Performers on the original roster included a member of Milli Vanilli. Bret Michaels. and Flo Rida. and several cited Trump’s partisanship as the reason for backing out.
Trump answered that scramble by saying he would replace the concert with a campaign rally. In a series of social media posts, he called the departed artists ‘Third Rate’.
Even among some Trump backers, the response has not been uniformly celebratory. Daily Wire host Matt Walsh criticized the handling of America 250 as a “bungled mess” that had “turned into a Trump rally where Trump will talk about himself for 90 minutes.”
For UFC’s Freedom 250, the show goes on. The event remains the hottest ticket in Washington among MAGA faithful and people hoping to curry favor with the administration. About 4,000 guests are expected to pack around the octagon on the South Lawn.
Ringside seats are reportedly reserved for those who have stumped up more than $1 million in sponsorship. Trump personally controls 1,000 tickets, while Dana White and Ari Emanuel each hold 200. Chief of staff Susie Wiles has been helping Trump hand-pick attendees.
TKO Group Holdings president Mark Shapiro put the total cost at around $60 million, with UFC said to be shouldering most of the bill.
All of it adds up to a tight final stretch for organizers: an event designed for spectacle, with an already-built South Lawn stage, and now a guest list that has to be rebuilt in real time after multiple A-list names declined to show up.
UFC Freedom 250 Dana White Donald Trump South Lawn Adam Sandler Tom Brady Jared Leto Dwayne Johnson The Rock Susie Wiles Ari Emanuel Milli Vanilli Bret Michaels Flo Rida Matt Walsh