Anything can happen on live television, and fancy black-tie events featuring the most beautiful people in the world are no exception. While we can’t predict what crazy shenanigans will happen at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, we can look back to the wildest, most jaw-dropping moments from Oscars past.
The year the wrong movie was announced
2017 was a weird year for award shows. Not only did Adele beat Beyoncé to win the Grammy for Album of the Year (a moment Adele was so shocked by, she used her acceptance speech to say she couldn’t possibly accept the award, as she believed it was clear Beyoncé deserved it), but the Oscars experienced its most embarrassing moment to date when the wrong Best Picture winner was announced.
Looking back, the moment seemed incredibly preventable. Warren Beatty had been given the wrong envelope (like how??), opened said envelope, realized he’s not looking at the right card (after all, it said Emma Stone won for Best Actress. Clearly not the award they were announcing in that moment), looked back into the envelope to see if the correct card happens to be there, decided to hand the card off to Faye Dunaway so it’ll be her fault when they’re wrong, and she gleefully announced “La La Land” as the winner.
Why Beatty didn’t just say, “Hey, someone gave me the wrong card, this one says Emma Stone won again,” the world may never know.
In Dunaway and Beatty’s defense, “La La Land” had received the most nominations and wins that year. It was a strong Best Picture contender, and it had already won Best Director, and the two categories correlate about 72% of the time. They had a very good chance of being correct, even if they had been holding a Domino’s menu instead of the actual card. Although, of course, they weren’t.
Eventually, of course, the “La La Land” producers are given the correct envelope, and in the middle of his speech, Fred Berger unceremoniously says, “We lost, by the way, but you know.” Jordan Horowitz then jumped in to clear everything up, announcing “Moonlight” as the actual Best Picture winner. The whole thing might be kind of funny if it didn’t give me heart palpitations watching it back almost a decade later.
The slap (not the 2015 TV show)
If I’m being honest, I refused to believe Will Smith slapping Oscars host Chris Rock in 2022 was a real thing. I understood that it happened, but I really assumed it was a prewritten bit or a publicity stunt (I also thought Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater’s relationship was a publicity stunt, so I have been wrong on this front before).
It wasn’t.
After Rock joked that Jada Pinkett Smith looked like G.I. Jane due to her bald head, which she’s openly said was caused by alopecia, Smith yelled at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your f——g mouth.” Rock laughed off the yell before Smith suddenly but calmly walked up to the stage and slapping the comedian.
Smith was forced to resign from the Academy after the incident and was banned from Oscars events for 10 years. So it definitely wasn’t a bit.
When Marlon Brando refused to accept his award
Marlon Brando made huge waves when he didn’t even show up to the 45th Academy Awards despite being the favorite to win Best Actor for his performance in “The Godfather.” Instead, he sent Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place.
Littlefeather explained that Brando could not accept the award due to “the treatment of American Indians by the film industry and on television, in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”
Some audience members booed, some cheered, but the controversy didn’t end there. After Littlefeather’s death, her family claimed she wasn’t Native American at all.
The multiple strange kisses over the years
Adrien Brody’s impromptu kiss with presenter Halle Berry after winning the award for Best Actor for “The Pianist” wasn’t the only weird lip action seen at the Oscars over the years.
Three years earlier, Angelina Jolie mouth-kissed her brother at the Oscars red carpet in 2000 and gave him a strange shout-out during her speech after winning for Best Supporting Actress for “Girl, Interrupted.”
Her speech started normally enough. “I’m surprised nobody’s ever fainted up here,” she said. “I’m in shock. And I’m so in love with my brother right now. He just held me and said he loved me and I know he’s so happy for me.”
Um what??
As it turns out, the Oscars weren’t the only place Jolie has swapped spit with her brother, which only makes it weirder.