The Oscars are done and dusted for another year, but like many years passed, it wouldn’t be Hollywood’s night of nights without at least a little bit of controversary.
While two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Halle Berry and Adrien Brody, tried to put at least one past bone of contention to bed, this year’s Best Supporting Actress Zoe Saldaña has tried and failed to quieten discord over this year’s most controversial film, Emilia Pérez.
Her response to a reporter’s question about Mexican viewers finding the film’s portrayal of the country “hurtful” – “I don’t share your opinion. For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico,” the actress said – has raised eyebrows, with social media commentary describing it as “disrespectful” and “tone deaf”.
READ MORE: Adrien Brody addresses controversial Oscars act
Let’s take a look back at nine of the biggest controversies to rock the Oscars during its 97-year history, including Emilia Pérez.
Stunt that got actress blacklisted from Hollywood
It was during the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973, that Marlon Brando was named the winner of the Best Actor category for his role in The Godfather.
But when his name was called, it was a native American actress and activist named Sacheen Littlefeather who took to the stage, clutching a letter written by Brando, and was subsequently booed on stage before she could even address the audience.
“He very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather said.
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“And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry… and on television in movie re-runs, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee,” she continued, in reference to the deaths of almost 300 native Americans at the hands of US soldiers during a protest.”
Littlefeather became the subject of racism and threats of violence as a result, and was blacklisted from Hollywood.
She finally received an apology from the Academy over her treatment in 2022, and died that same year.
A monumental mix-up
There was only one category left during the 2017 Oscars – the all-important Best Picture.
Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were tasked with announcing the winners.
Beatty tore open the envelope before gesturing to Dunaway to announce the winner as the producers and stars of La La Land rushed to the stage to celebrate. There was only one problem – the film hadn’t won at all.
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More than two minutes into the acceptance speeches, which were being witnessed by a global audience of millions, one of the film’s producers, Jordan Horowitz, announced to the incredulous audience, “Guys, I’m sorry there’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture.”
It later transpired that Beatty and Dunaway had been handed the wrong envelope, which apparently had the name of the Best Actress winner Emma Stone above the words La La Land.
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If you watch back the video of the night you can even see that Beatty knew something was amiss and looked around for help before leaving it to Dunaway to read out the wrong name.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers – the accounting firm that tabulates the votes – later took full responsibility for the gaffe and even named the firm’s partner Brian Cullinan for handing Beatty and Dunaway the wrong envelope.
The slap heard around the world
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It will go down in history as the first time a Oscar nominee has “slapped the s—” out of a presenter.
It was March 2022, about three-quarters of the way through the ceremony when comedian Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.
“Jada, I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” he said, as the cameras panned to Smith at first laughing and then Pinkett Smith rolling her eyes.
Pinkett Smith, who suffers alopecia, did not find the joke funny and seconds later, Smith walked up to the stage and slapped Rock hard across the face before returning to his seat.
“Wow,” Rock exclaimed. “Will Smith just smacked the s— out of me.”
While many at first wondered if it was a joke, Smith yelled from his seat, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—ing mouth.” Then repeated the order again, making it clear it was not a joke.
Smith went on to win that night’s Best Actor award but was later banned from attending the ceremony for 10 years.
Streaker upstages acting legend
The Oscar ceremony was in full swing in 1974.
Renowned English actor David Niven was preparing to introduce Elizabeth Taylor, when a man wearing nothing but his very ’70s moustache dashed across the stage.
“Isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?” Niven quipped.
The streaker was Robert Opel, a 34-year-old photographer and art gallery owned who reportedly posed as a journalist to gain back stage entry.
Surprisingly, he was not thrown out of the ceremony and instead turned up at the press conference for award winners, leading many to believe the stunt was planned.
Just five years later he was shot dead during a robbery.
His naked run across the stage was commemorated 50 years later during the 2024 Academy Awards when John Cena presented the award for Best Costume Design with only an envelope to cover his modesty.
It’s a tie
In 1969, five actresses were vying for the title of Best Actress. But when the time came to announce the winner there was just one problem.
Actress Ingrid Bergman, who was tasked with announcing the winner, opened the envelope and gasped, “It’s a tie.”
She then announced the joint winners were Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl and Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.
A total of 3030 members of the Academy of Motion Pictures had been eligible to vote. The exact number of votes each of the five actresses received was never divulged.
An awkward rush to the podium to snatch the award first was avoided because only Streisand, who had turned 27 just 10 days earlier, was there on the night.
Meanwhile, the much older Hepburn, then 61, became only the second person to win the Best Actress Oscar two years in a row, having won the previous year for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
She went on to win four Academy Awards in all and famously never attended a single Oscars ceremony.
The speech that haunts Sally Field
“You like me. You really like me.”
They were just seven words but they have haunted three-time Oscar winner Sally Field since her Best Actress win in 1985 for Places in the Heart.
It all comes down to one problem: She never actually said it.
While Field’s tearful speech did include a similar phrase – “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!” – it was far enough removed that it should not have evoked the reaction and merciless bullying in the four decades that followed.
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Field, who had also won the Best Actress gong in 1980 for Norma Rae, had always felt somewhat like she didn’t belong at the top of the Hollywood ladder, having started her career in the title roles in Gidget and The Flying Nun.
It was this she was trying to explain when she started her speech by saying, “I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect.”
She told The Washington Post in 2019, she would try to be “more articulate” if she had her time again but still thought she had “succeeded in what I have been trying to do. That you think I was excellent.”
A eyebrow-raising awards campaign
In early 2023, a little-known actress from an even lesser-known independent film, To Leslie, snagged a Best Actress nomination.
While there was nothing particularly odd in that, what was unusual was Andrea Riseborough’s nomination came after a very public campaign on her behalf by some big stars including Gwyneth Paltrow and Amy Adams.
What really didn’t sit well with some in Hollywood was the fact her nomination came at the expense of two Black actresses who had been considered frontrunners for a nomination in what has been long criticised as a very white competition.
While Riseborough did not win, an investigation was launched by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to see if the campaign, much of took place on social media, had broken any rules.
The investigation resulted in a host of changes from 2024, including banning members from using social media to “encourage or discourage members to vote for any motion picture, performance, or achievement.”
Voters were also banned from speaking to the media about their choices.
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The kiss Halle Berry didn’t see coming
Moments after walking on stage in 2003 to receive his Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Pianist, Adrien Brody grabbed Halle Berry and planted a kiss on the shocked presenter.
“I bet they didn’t tell you that [kiss] was in the gift bag,” Brody joked before launching into his acceptance speech.
While the move raised eyebrows at the time, it was further dissected in the years that followed, especially in relation to the MeToo movement.
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Berry addressed the event on Watch What Happens Live in 2017.
“I was like, ‘What the f— is happening right now?’ That is what was going through my mind,” she told the show’s host Andy Cohen.
“And because I was there the year before and I know the feeling of being out of your body, I just f—ing went with it. But I was like, ‘What the f— is going on right now?'”
Brody also addressed the kiss as recently as this year when he told Variety, “We live in a very conscious time, which is a wonderful thing… And nothing that I ever do or have done or would’ve done is ever done with the intention of making anyone feel bad.”
While the move raised eyebrows at the time, it was further dissected in the years that followed, especially in relation to the MeToo movement.
As for Berry, yesterday she finally put the matter to bed when she seemingly got Brody back by planting a kiss on him on the red carpet in front of shocked fans and Brody’s girlfriend.
She later posted a video of the moment on Instagram and wrote, “Surpriseee @adrienbrody!! I had to get some payback,” along with a winking emoji
Emilia Pérez controversy
One of the most celebrated films of the 2025 Academy Awards was Emilia Pérez, a French-made, Spanish language film that received a staggering 13 nominations, but only managed to take home two.
The film was so controversial on so many levels that one of its stars skipped the red carpet and another has apologised to an entire country over its storyline.
Described as a musical crime comedy, Emilia Pérez tells the story of a Mexican cartel leader who fakes his own death before transitioning. The title role is played by Spanish actor, Karla Sofía Gascón, who is transgender.
But the film and Gascón managed to offend the Mexican people over its depiction of drug cartels and comments made by the film’s writer-director Jacques Audiard over the Spanish language.
The LGBTQ community also took aim at how transgender people are depicted in the film while previous Islamophobic, racist and otherwise offensive comments made by Gascón on social media site X (formerly Twitter) also came to light.
Gascón apologised and deleted her X account, and skipped most of the award season as well as the Oscars red carpet following a backlash.
Now, an attempt by her co-star and Best Supporting Actress winner Zoe Saldaña to address criticism from a Mexican journalist who said the film “really hurtful for us Mexicans” has backfired.
“First of all, I’m very, very sorry that many Mexicans felt offended. That was never our intention,” she said at the Oscars press conference.
“We spoke from a place of love. I don’t share your opinion. For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico. We were making a film about friendship. We were making a film about four women.
“And these women could have been Russian, could have been Dominican, could have been Black from Detroit, could have been from Israel, could have been from Gaza.”
Her comments and mention of her Dominican Republic ancestry (she also has Puerto Rican ancestry) has angered many people on social media, including those who didn’t agree with her portrayal of black singer Nina Simone in the 2016 film Nina.
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