The shocking 'truth' behind Richard Gere's Oscars ban has been revealed as the iconic actor spoke out about the 20-year snub.
Back in the 80s and 90s, the man best known for his roles in Pretty Woman and American Gigolo was a firm fixture in Hollywood.
It only seemed like a matter of time until Gere was nominated for an Oscar, particularly after a couple of Golden Globe nods, but things appeared to go south during his speech at the 1993 Academy Awards.
He earned himself a hefty ban after he took aim at the Chinese government during a short presenting slot, speaking passionately about the treatment of Tibetan people and lambasting former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
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The movie star, now 76, had become close with the Dalai Lama and told the A-listers in the audience to 'send love and truth and kind of sanity to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing'.
His speech landed him in some hot water and earned him a 20-year ban, which was twice as long as the one Will Smith was given after memorably slapping Chris Rock for a joke about his wife.
Now, I'm sure you maths geniuses out there have figured out that 1993 was in fact over 30 years ago, which suggests that Gere's ban actually ended all the way back in 2013.
And it wasn't until then that he made his first appearance back on the Oscars stage again.
At the time, he told HuffPost: "Apparently, I've been rehabilitated. It seems if you stay around long enough, they forget they've banned you."
However, it's been claimed that this 'ban' may have never even existed, with the Daily Mail reporting that Gere was invited several times during that period but didn't attend due to 'scheduling conflicts'.
Meanwhile, in 2007, a spokesperson for the Academy's press office told GQ: "We don't ban presenters. There's no such thing as a ban."
Gere recently spoke out about the scandal in an interview with Variety.
He said: "I didn’t take it particularly personally. I didn’t think there were any bad guys in the situation. I do what I do and I certainly don’t mean anyone any harm.
"I mean to harm anger. I mean to harm exclusion. I mean to harm human rights abuses, but I try to stay as close to where His Holiness comes from… that everyone is redeemable, and in the end, everyone has to be redeemed or none of us [are]."
As per the Los Angeles Times, Gilbert 'Gil' Cates, the late producer of the awards ceremony, said: "Does anyone care about Richard Gere’s comments about China? It’s arrogant."
Also referring to Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who like Gere deviated from their script, Cates added: "I wouldn’t invite them to my home, and I won’t invite them to a future show."
Gere remains close to the Dalai Lama, 90, to this day and considering he's continuing to act, perhaps it's never too late to earn himself that Oscar nomination.
LADbible has contacted representatives of Richard Gere and the Academy's press office for comment.
James Moorhouse