By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-06-10 17:50:44 | Updated at 2026-06-13 01:34:24
2 days ago
Sean Penn has been slammed for saying he would not take a selfie with a Holocaust survivor grandmother or a child paraplegic.
The 65-year-old Oscar winner baffled many as he brought up the genocide of European Jews during World War II unprompted during a rant about people asking to take photos with him.
'People should not do selfies ever with anyone. It’s bad for you; it’s bad for everyone. It’s a soul-sucker.
'It’s the Holocaust grandmother and her 6-year-old paraplegic wheeling over? It’s a hard no,' Penn said during an interview with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins during a Friday afternoon talk at Spring Studios as part of the 25th annual Tribeca Festival in New York via Variety.
Daily Mail has reached out to Penn's representatives for comment and have yet to hear back.
Penn's comments were completely blasted on social media as many were unhappy that the Holocaust and a child with a disability were even brought up in the first place.
Sean Penn (pictured in LA last month) has been slammed for saying he would not take a selfie with a Holocaust survivor grandmother or a child paraplegic
One X (formerly Twitter) user wrote: 'No surprise from the biggest dirtbag in Hollywood.'
Another user wrote: 'He really is an insufferable a**hole… @SouthPark needs another episode dedicated just to this.'
Penn's rant began as he explained why he was absent from the Oscars in March despite being nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for One Battle After Another which he ended up winning.
He said: 'It’s not just [that it’s] an awards show. It would be the same if this group was going to an afterparty and one stepped into that.
'That always represented social discomfort for me; too many people. I’m now down, committed for life, that I won’t go anywhere to be in a designated group beyond eight people.'
The actor went on to say that the issue with being at large public gatherings is you only get about 15 minutes with each person which triggers his anxiety.
Penn explained: 'The two times I had gone I felt relief that I’d won because so many people out there had worked really hard for that. There’s the politics of that stuff.'
The thespian said he had talked to his One Battle After Another colleagues before the Oscars and they all agreed that it would be better for his mental health if he was absent.
'People should not do selfies ever with anyone. It’s bad for you; it’s bad for everyone. It’s a soul-sucker. It’s the Holocaust grandmother and her 6-year-old paraplegic wheeling over? It’s a hard no,' Penn (pictured in February) said during an interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins
Penn's comments were completely blasted on social media as many were unhappy that the Holocaust and a child with a disability were even brought up in the first place
So instead, the A-lister paid a visit to the Ukraine frontline and met up with President Volodymyr Zelensky as he still watched the ceremony in the wee hours of the morning.
Penn said: 'I really got to enjoy the Academy Awards for the first time. It was great.'
He revealed that he made the decision to stop attending award shows after showing up to the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles back in January.
The actor explained: 'The best that I could ever muster was relief. Knowing that I wasn’t going to do that anymore, I did one before that this year. I went to the Golden Globes; I’d never been to that before. And that’s where I decided, "I can’t do this."
'[It’s] the ninth person. And it’s not the low-hanging fruit of "I don’t wanna be around all this fake Hollywood" or something.'
He also said that he was bombarded by people who wanted selfies while leaving the Golden Globes - including one with 16-year-old Adolescence actor Owen Cooper - and made a vow to not attend events with more than eight people.
Penn famously courted controversy as he was caught smoking inside the Hollywood ceremony as his career has been full of issues due to his behavior and fiery temper.
His first issue came in 1985 when the actor physically attacked two journalists trying to photograph him and Madonna in Nashville - an incident which began a dangerous pattern that led to Sean being sentenced to prison two years later.
Sean was already on probation when he was shooting Colors following a charge of misdemeanor battery for assaulting songwriter David Wolinski at Helena's nightclub in Los Angeles.
Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Esther Senot is seen in Paris last month
Penn said that he was bombarded by people who wanted selfies while leaving the Golden Globes - including one with 16-year-old Adolescence actor Owen Cooper (pictured) - and made a vow to not attend events with more than eight people
Penn skipped the Oscars in March and instead paid a visit to the Ukraine frontline and meet up with President Volodymyr Zelensky
He was under strict conditions not to break his probation, but all hell broke loose while he was on set of the film, and his reputation was further tarnished.
In 1987 Sean had another brush with the law after punching an extra on the set of his film Colors.
After he attacked Jeffrey Klein, he was arrested and sentenced to 60 days in jail for assault. Sean served 33 days of the 60-day sentence.
Elsewhere, Sean has denied many rumors over the years that he beat ex-wife Madonna.
During their turbulent marriage in the 1980s, sensational claims surfaced that he tied her to a chair on one occasion and struck her with a baseball bat on another.
Both Madonna and Sean have staunchly denied he was ever violent with her, and she even testified on his behalf in a defamation lawsuit over the allegations.
Sean and Madonna tied the knot in 1985, starting a rollercoaster marriage in which she filed for divorce in 1987, reconciled with him, then left him for good in 1989.
Despite being at the centre of controversies through the years, he isn't worried by cancel culture.
In a joint interview with Julia Roberts last year, Sean critiqued cancel culture and the absence of shame as they discussed her 'provocative' Me-Too film After The Hunt.
A major point of discussion was Julia's recent film After The Hunt - which follows a college professor [Roberts] whose star pupil makes a sexual assault accusation against one of her colleagues causing a dark secret from her own past to surface.
The film looks at the complexities of a person's loyalties and bonds being put in direct competition with their ethical and moral compass.
Sean was sentenced to two years in prison after physically attacking two journalists in 1985 (pictured in 1984)
Sean shared how he thought it was refreshing to see the 'provocative' film challenge the idea that no one should be made to feel uncomfortable, adding: 'I think shame is underrated these days. It's got a bad name this decade. Why shouldn't people be ashamed of things?'
The thrice-divorced Malibu native has won two Academy Awards for his leading performances in Clint Eastwood's 2004 crime thriller Mystic River and Gus Van Sant's 2008 Harvey Milk biopic Milk.
In November 2022, Sean gave away one of his Oscar statuettes to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eight months after the Academy refused to allow the politician to speak during the same ceremony they allowed Will Smith to slap Chris Rock.
'It's just a symbolic silly thing, but if I know this is here with you, then I'll feel better and strong enough for the fights,' Sean said at the time.
'When you win, bring it back to Malibu because I'll feel much better knowing there's a piece of me here.'
