When the New Year comes around a host of celebrities, politicians, and more will be offered OBEs, MBEs, and Knighthoods in a list published by the King.
This will be recommended in part by the prime minister, as well as by senior government ministers and members of the public.
While for many Brits this is the ultimate achievement, for others it is very much the opposite.
Various celebrities have turned down royal family honours for a multitude of reasons, ranging from political to personal.
Here is a full list of all the celebrities who have turned down the honours:
John Lennon and George Harrison
I can confirm that, while both Lennon and Harrison returned or refused honours, neither of them uttered the words ‘scouse not English’.
All four of the Beatles were given MBEs in 1965, which Lennon sent back four years later. He did so due to the country’s foreign policy, with the message “Your Majesty, I am returning this in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon of Bag”.
Harrison meanwhile was offered an OBE in 2000, three years after Paul McCartney gained a forename and became a knight.
This was apparently why Harrison turned down his OBE, with his friend Roy Connolly saying: “Whoever it was who decided to offer him the OBE and not the knighthood was extraordinarily insensitive.
“George would have felt insulted – and with very good reason”.
David Bowie
The late great popstar turned down honours on multiple occasions.
In 2000 Bowie was offered a CBE, and in 2003 was offered to become Sir David Bowie.
He said when asked about rejecting both: “I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for. It’s not what I spent my life working for.”
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders
In 2001 the iconic comedic duo turned down an OBE for ‘services to comedy’ and didn’t speak about why.
Later, in an interview with Source Magazine, Jennifer Saunders said: “If I felt I deserved a damehood I’d accept it.
“At the time we felt that we were being paid very well to have a lot of fun. It didn’t seem right somehow. We didn’t deserve a pat on the back.
“It felt a bit fake to stand alongside people who devoted their lives to truly worthy causes.”
Benjamin Zephaniah
While many turn down the idea of a Knighthood or honours of some kind due to feeling they don’t deserve it, some either turn it down or give it back due to what it represents.
The legendary poet who died last year said he rejected an OBE in 2003.
In an article he wrote for The Guardian, he said: “Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”
He went on to add: “I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.
“Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire”.
Michael Sheen
Zephaniah is not the only person to turn down or return honours due to the history of the British empire.
Michael Sheen accepted an OBE in 2009, but returned it in 2017.
Sheen was set to give a lecture for the Raymond Williams Society Lecture which focused heavily on the ‘tortured history’ between England and Wales.
Within this he spoke about the title ‘Prince of Wales’, one given to the English monarch to their son, calling for it to be ‘no longer held as it has before’.
He returned it, saying in an interview with Owen Jones: “By the time I’d finished writing that lecture, I remember sitting there going: ‘Well, I have a choice. I either don’t give this lecture and hold on to my OBE or I give this lecture and I have to give my OBE back’”.
Several others have either rejected or returned their royal honours, including:
– Roald Dahl
– Nigella Lawson
– Stephen Hawking
– Paul Weller
– Danny Boyle
– Joseph Conrad
– Bernie Ecclestone
– C.S. Lewis
– Helen Mirren (declined in 1996, accepted a damehood in 2003)
– Jim Broadbent
– Jon Snow
