18 Emmy, Oscar, and other award show scandals that rocked the industry

Given how long ago this next flub happened, it’s probably safe to say most readers won’t remember this one. When Will Rogers announced who won Best Director at the 1934 Academy Awards, he vaguely blurted out, “Come up and get it, Frank.” Frank Capra, nominated for Lady For A Day made his way to the podium. Unfortunately for him, the award belonged to another Frank (Lloyd) who had directed Cavalcade. When Capra wrote about the mishap in his autobiography, he referred to himself as a ‘big stupido’.

Can you guess the movies that made these quotes famous?

Weeks before the 2000 Academy Awards ceremony, 55 Oscar trophies were lifted from a loading dock in Los Angeles. A few days later as the company raced to manufacture replacements in time for movies’ biggest night, an unemployed junk scavenger named Willie Fulgear found 52 of them while rummaging through a dumpster behind a Koreatown Food 4 Less in Los Angeles. Fulgear was given a $50,000 reward and two tickets to the Oscars.

The thieves were caught, admitted to chickening out, and received light punishment. One Oscar turned up in 2003 during a Florida drug bust and two are still missing. Fun fact: the recovered awards were destroyed because they figured no star would want damaged goods and later admitted that batch was actually earmarked for the 2001 awards, as their policy was to make figurines a year in advance.

It was a case of censor-y overload. Dame Helen Mirren, who is known in the industry for her sassiness and potty mouth, was summoned to the stage at the 58^th Emmy to pick up the trophy for Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I, her career third Emmy. Apparently, playing staid British royals has not rubbed off on the actress. She ascended the steep stapes from the audience while balancing a shawl around her shoulders and when she got to the microphone, she laughed, “My great triumph is not falling a*s over t*t as I came up those stairs. If you saw the shoes I’ve got on, you’d understand.”

Whether it was because of her posh aura, or the assumption that a woman of her age would not dare swear on live TV, the censors failed to bleep the profanity and the actually hilarious and adorable moment was blasted out to millions of homes.

In 1978, acclaimed director Roman Polanski admitted he’d given a 13-year-old girl champagne and a Quaalude, pled guilty to the statutory rape, spent 42 days in jail, and then fled the country before sentencing because he feared the judge would toss out the lenient plea deal. Still a fugitive of the law in the United States, he has spent his days in France and other countries that agreed not to extradite him. None of that stopped the Academy from awarding him a Best Director Oscar in 2003 for his film, The Pianist. In fact, he even received a standing ovation despite not even being there to accept it.

People have argued about the controversial win for years. When the #MeToo movement really kicked into gear in 2017 and Harvey Weinstein had his Academy membership revoked after being accused of several accounts of sexual assault and harassment, the Polanski debate was reignited. In 2018, Polanski and Bill Cosby were also expelled from the Oscars organisation.

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They say loose lips sink ships – and there have certainly been plenty of questionable kissing moments over the years, including Britney Spears and Madonna’s famous smooch at the 2003 VMAs and Nicole Kidman bussing her Big Little Lies husband Alexander Skarsgard after his win at the 2017 Emmys as her real-life husband, Keith Urban, looked on. But the kiss that made the most hairs bristle was the overly long one shared by Angelina Jolie and her date/brother James Haven on the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet in 2000 in their his-and-hers goth duds.

Making matters worse, her speech for winning Best Supporting Actor for Girl, Interrupted. “I’m in shock. And I’m just so in love with my brother right now,” she said a little too emphatically. “He just held me and said he loved me and I know he’s so happy for me.” They simply said people were turning it into something it wasn’t. Almost 14 years later, another explanation emerged when their mother’s best friend revealed they’d spent the hours before the show with their mother, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and received her first treatment that day.

In 1991, during the height of Poison’s popularity thanks to ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ and ‘Unskinny Bop’ and amidst in-fighting, alcohol, and drug abuse, and sleazy on-the-road sexcapades, feuding lead singer Bret Michaels and guitarist C.C. Deville found their breaking point at the MTV VMAs. As the musicians walked off stage with Cindy Crawford and Eddie Van Halen, the bandmates broke out in a full-on fistfight and the rift led to Deville exiting the band.

Flash forward to 2009 and the Tony Awards where Michaels performed   Poison’s hit ‘Nothin’ But a Good Time’ with the cast of Broadway’s Rock of Ages, a play about the world of over-the-top ’80s hair metal. Unfortunately, at the end of song, Michaels was knocked to the ground by a descending piece of scenery. The Tony’s crew said he missed his mark and host Neil Patrick Harris seconded that statement in an on-stage joke saying Michaels “gave headbanging a whole new meaning.” The singer, who fractured his nose and needed three stitches in his lip, clapped back saying that he was never given a mark to hit or told about the set piece. He was upset that the organisers blamed the accident on him and that they announced that he was fine before he saw a doctor. He went on to sue the show organisers and CBS over the incident.

Questionable clothes can be a recurring award show nightmare or a watercooler-worthy crowd-pleaser in the case of Lady Gaga’s raw meat dress or Bjork’s egg-laying swan costume. Andre 3000 of OutKast found himself in the former situation when the duo, who had just won Album Of The Year, closed the 2004 Grammy ceremony. They did ‘Hey Ya’ with a Native American slant complete with a futuristic teepee, moccasins, and scantily clad dancers with feathers in their hair. Native Americans were outraged and CBS wound up apologising on everyone’s behalf.

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Long before the Moonlight – La La Land snafu, Marisa Tomei found herself at the centre of an Oscar scandal, and its effects would be felt for years to follow, due mostly to the fact that it happened in 1993 – long before the world had Snopes or social media for fact-checking.

Tomei was the underdog. She was a relative newbie at the time in the light-hearted sleeper hit My Cousin Vinny. She was pitted against four more experienced non-Americans with heavier roles. Against the odds, she persevered. But the day after the show, The Hollywood Reporter printed a blind item about rumours flying in Manhattan that she had not really won. They claimed that presenter Jack Palance was either too drunk or stoned to read the correct name, so he just repeated the last name on the teleprompter. The story was passed around and reprinted, and even though the Academy repeatedly confirmed there was no mistake, the doubt remained. Tomei is still asked about it and is still a punchline.

John Travolta had one job to do at the 2014 Oscars: introduce Frozen singer/actress Idina Menzel’s performance of what would become that evening’s Best Original Song winner. Instead, he bizarrely welcomed Adele Dazeem to the stage. Most assumed he was inebriated, while some feared he’d had a stroke. He blamed a frazzled entrance, an unexpected encounter with Goldie Hawn, and a change on the cue cards. Menzel let it go, but not before playfully returning the favour the following year by asking Glom Gazingo to join her on stage and jokingly adding, “It’s not like it’s going to follow me around for the rest of my life or anything.”

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Source: RD.com