From pop icons to hip-hop kings, these chart-topping musicians discovered that success on stage doesn’t always translate to acclaim on the silver screen.
(March 16, 2026) – Legendary rapper Ice Cube was the big “winner” Saturday (March 14) at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards—better known as the Razzies—Hollywood’s tongue-in-cheek ceremony honoring the year’s worst in film. For his lead role in the year’s Worst Picture trophy getter, War of the Worlds, Cube took the prize as the year’s Worst Actor, making him the latest in a long list of musicians to be so recognized.
As it does every year, the annual anti-Academy Awards parody ceremony took place on the eve of the Oscars. It was the 46th consecutive year of the Razzies, whose origins trace back to two bad music-themed movies from 1980: Can’t Stop the Music—a film about the Village People starring the campy disco group as themselves, and the Olivia Newton-John/Gene Kelly low-fi fantasy vehicle Xanadu.
But, unlike Xanadu and other “bad” movies that have since orbited back to being cult classics as new perspectives prevail, War of the Worlds and Ice Cube’s performance in it were deemed by critics to be so bad that they’ll likely never enjoy cult classic status or even enter that discussion.
A Razzie Runs in the Smith Family
Yet, despite Worlds—which won five of the six Razzies it was up for—vying for the worst of the worst, the “It Was a Good Day” artist from Compton, CA, isn’t the first rapper to win a Razzie for a lead acting role. That honor belongs to fellow Californian Jaden Smith, the Malibu son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, who won for his performance in the 2013 post-apocalyptic film After Earth. Jaden was joined in the recognition by his co-starring father Will, who earned Worst Supporting Actor for the same movie. In fact, the parody-laden Razzies gave the father and son the “Worst Screen Couple” award for the film, which did well at the box office despite its critical panning.
Apparently, Will Smith is prone to bad partnerships—according to the Razzies—having nabbed the “Worst Screen Couple” statuette with Kevin Kline for their pairing in 1999’s Wild Wild West as well as being nominated for “Worst Screen Combo” for 2016’s Collateral Beauty alongside the “entire cast of once respected actors” in that film.
And regarding Wild Wild West, that movie took the Worst Picture prize for its year, while Smith also earned the Worst Original Song award for the film’s title track, which sampled Stevie Wonder’s classic No. 1 smash, “I Wish,” and featured fellow rapper Kool Moe Dee (whose original ‘80s rap classic “Wild Wild West” was interpolated by Smith’s hit).
Madonna: The Queen of Pop… and the Queen of Razzies
Still, even all the Smith family’s Razzies combined couldn’t match the total of the record holder. That would be Madonna, who has seven for acting – including five for her lead roles – plus an eighth for Worst Screen Couple (with Adriano Giannini for the film Swept Away in 2002). Madonna’s “wins” for bad acting include Razzies for her lead roles in Shanghai Surprise (1986), Who’s That Girl (1987), Body of Evidence (1993), The Next Best Thing (2000), and Swept Away (2002), plus two Worst Supporting Actress plaques for Four Rooms (1995) and Die Another Day (2002). Interestingly, the only Madonna tune to be nominated for a Worst Original Song Razzie was the title track to Die Another Day during the last ceremony to recognize the now-defunct music category. “Day” lost to Britney Spears’ coming of age tune “I Am Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” from the movie Crossroads.
When Actors Turned Musicians (and Back Again)
The musician with the second-most Razzies for bad acting is John Travolta with four, with the former ‘70s heartthrob winning two each for the years 2000 (Battlefield Earth, Lucky Numbers) and 2019 (The Fanatic and Trading Paint). Actor-turned-occasional-rock-recording artist Bruce Willis is third with three trophies—all won in the same year—for the 1998 films Armageddon, Mercury Rising, and The Siege. Of note, Armageddon’s soundtrack’s hit single—“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith—is the only No. 1 song besides Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” to be nominated for Worst Original Song, which it lost to “I Wanna Be Mike Ovitz” from the movie An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn.
The careers of Travolta and Willis followed similar trajectories. Both men were known for their acting on the small screen—Travolta in Welcome Back, Kotter, and Willis for Moonlighting—before they became pop top ten hitmakers and then made it on the big screen. And their transitions to the big screen wasn’t always well received by critics. Travolta received three Razzie noms for Worst Actor before earning his first trophies in 2000. The earlier nods included 1983’s Staying Alive (the sequel to Saturday Night Fever) and Two of a Kind (another team-up with Olivia Newton-John, who also received a Razzie nom for her role). Two years later Travolta was nominated for his lead role in Perfect. Similarly, Willis received three Razzie nominations, including for 1991’s Hudson Hawk and twice in 1994 for Color of Night and North, before he “won” his three trophies in 1998.
Eddie Murphy and the Razzie’s Drag Tradition
Eddie Murphy, the comedian-turned-movie star-turned-singer, has been nominated several times for Razzie’s in the Worst Actor category—including for the movies The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, Showtime, Meet Dave, and A Thousand Words—but has only two wins to his name. He secured a Worst Actor trophy for his lead role in 2007’s Norbit, and a Worst Supporting Actress for his portrayal of Norbit’s obese wife Rasputia in the same film.
The cross-gender recognition of Murphy is standard practice for the tongue-in-cheek Razzies, which recognizes actors performing in drag in the gender category of the character they’re portraying. It explains Tyler Perry’s many Worst Actress nominations and wins for his portrayal of the franchise character Madea, and Barbra Streisand’s lone nomination in the Worst Actor category for the film Yentl, in which she played the “male” lead character.
Even Legends Aren’t Immune
But Streisand—perhaps the most accomplished singer and actress on this list—curiously has three worst acting nods in the female categories to go with her male nod in Yentl: she was nominated for Worst Actress in the films All Night Long (1981) and The Guilt Trip (2012), as well as for Worst Supporting Actress in the comedy Little Fockers (2010). Had she won any of these, she might have become the first actor to win a Razzie after winning an Oscar—both for acting.
But one of her former singing collaborators has a trophy for his acting. Neil Diamond—Streisand’s longtime label mate and duet partner on their No. 1 smash, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,”—won the very first Razzie for Worst Actor for his portrayal of 1980’s The Jazz Singer. Diamond’s soundtrack recording of “You, Baby, Baby” was also nominated that year for Worst Original Song. Furthermore, The Jazz Singer was nominated alongside Xanadu for Worst Picture (both thankfully “losing” to the Village People vehicle, Can’t Stop the Music) during that inaugural ceremony.
Prince and the Purple Razzie
Diamond and Streisand weren’t the only superstars unimmune to the ugly stench of a Razzie trophy. All three of Prince’s movies received some kind of Golden Raspberry recognition. The Purple One bagged a Worst Actor statue for 1986’s Under the Cherry Moon, which also took Worst Picture that year, as well as Worst Supporting Actor for Jerome Benton, best known as Morris Day’s sidekick and onstage hype man for their group The Time. Prince also received a Worst Actor nomination for 1990’s Graffiti Bridge, plus a nom for Worst Original Song with Appolonia’s “Sex Shooter,” which Prince wrote for inclusion in the film Purple Rain.
Other Musicians Who’ve Felt the Razzie Sting
Other big-name musicians who’ve seen the Razzies’ wrath include The Jonas Brothers who were recognized as Worst Actors for their combined role in the film Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009). Billy Ray Cyrus won Worst Supporting Actor for being the title character’s dad in the 2009 film Hannah Montana: The Movie. Other male singers or rappers that have been nominated in either category include Kris Kristofferson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Wayne Newton, Chris Brown, Jamie Foxx, Ludacris, Patrick Swayze, Vanilla Ice, Shaquille O’Neal, Mark Wahlberg, Machine Gun Kelly, and—most recently—The Weeknd for his 2025 movie Hurry Up Tomorrow.
On the women’s side, Liza Minelli won Worst Actress for two films in the same year: 1988’s Arthur 2: On the Rocks and Rent-a-Cop. The Spice Girls collectively won for Spice World in 1998. Mariah Carey took home the trophy for Glitter in 2001. Britney Spears landed a plaque for Crossroads in 2002. Jennifer Lopez’ Gigli gave her the dubious honor in 2003. Lindsay Lohan took the cake as Worst Actress in the 2007 vehicle, I Know Who Killed Me. And Kate Hudson, who released her first studio album in 2024, was given a Razzie four years earlier for her lead role in a movie ironically titled Music. Several singers were nominated and are winless, including Olivia Newton-John, Vanity, Bette Midler, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Clarkson, Lindsay Lohan, Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Lady Gaga.
Worst Supporting Actress trophies, in addition to those already mentioned for Madonna and Eddie Murphy, have gone to Spears (Fahrenheit 9/11; 2004) and Rihanna (Battleship, 2012). Many other singers, including Grace Jones, Lopez, Ashlee Simpson, Jessica Simpson, Cher, Gaga, and Lohan, have been nominated in this category but remain happily winless.
Despite the embarrassment of a Razzie trophy—or the threat of one—musicians will almost certainly keep trying their luck in Hollywood. After all, the same performers who can command stadium crowds or top the Billboard charts often assume that charisma will translate to the big screen. Sometimes it does. Other times it produces the kind of performances that Razzie voters gleefully immortalize. Either way, the crossover between music and movies isn’t going away—and if history is any guide, the Razzies will always be there to remind us when the experiment goes hilariously wrong.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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