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Many people were rooting for Angela Bassett to win 2023’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actress following her moving performance in Wakanda Forever. However, the award went to “everyone’s favorite nepo baby”, Jamie Lee Curtis — despite initially struggling to understand the script for the history-making Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Fans are divided about the decision. Some think the Halloween star didn’t deserve the win while others feel like the American Horror Story alum reacted like a “sore loser.” Here’s what really happened between Bassett and Curtis.
Angela Bassett On Being ‘Robbed’ Of An Oscar In 1994
There’s a reason Bassett was disappointed she didn’t win that Oscar. Back in 1994, everyone thought she was “robbed” when she didn’t win an Oscar for Best Actress for playing Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It. But in an interview ahead of the ceremony this year, she said that she’s made peace with it.
“Of course, in the moment you’re hoping and praying and wishing [you’ll win],” she admitted to Gayle King on CBS Mornings. “But I never – I don’t walk away thinking ‘I’ve been robbed.’ That’s too negative of an emotion to carry with me for the rest of my life. I choose to believe there was a reason why it didn’t happen.”
In another recent interview with The New Yorker, the MCU star said that if everyone knew how hard she worked for that role, “you would not say anything negative to me about anything!” She recalled “working out, getting up at 5 a.m.” and eating “standing up, just so frazzled on black coffee, plain chicken breasts, white potatoes, and green beans.”
“That’s all that I ate during that time. They would still say, ‘Tina has a high butt. You have a low butt,'” she continued, noting that it only made her stronger back then.
“I just remember thinking, You might lose a battle, but we’re trying to win a war. I would come home, put in the CD, and listen to her [Turner’s] songs until I fell asleep. I would study each and every detail within a phrase, or half a phrase. [She sings the opening of A Fool in Love]. ‘Ohhhh! There’d something on my mind . . . .’ I would just study the ‘Oh’ to get it perfectly right.”
Jamie Lee Curtis On Her First Oscar Win
Curtis got so emotional onstage when she was receiving her first-ever Oscar. “I know it looks like I’m standing up here by myself, but I am not. I am hundreds of people,” she said during her speech, crediting Everything Everywhere‘s cast and crew. “We just won an Oscar!”
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She mentioned her parents, late actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis who would have been “incredibly proud” of her. “My mother and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories. I just won an Oscar,” she said.
The Freaky Friday star has previously addressed the “nepo baby” labels back in the SAG Awards in February 2023. During her acceptance speech, she told the audience: “I know you look at me and think ‘nepo baby,’ that’s why she’s there, and I totally get it/ But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old, and this is just amazing.”
As of this writing, neither Curtis nor Bassett has made a statement about the backlash on that viral Oscars moment.
Inside Angela Bassett’s ‘Sore Loser’ Reaction To Jamie Lee Curtis’ Oscar Win
While waiting for the announcement, the cameras were focused on the five nominees for Best Supporting Actress: Bassett, Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, Hong Chau, and Kerry Condon. When presenters, Ariana DeBose and Troy Kotsur called Curtis’ name, she looked so surprised and was seen saying, “Oh, shut up.” Meanwhile, Bassett didn’t look as thrilled as the other nominees.
“Angela Bassett’s reaction to Jamie Lee Curtis’ name being called…you can tell how much that Oscar would have meant to her,” tweeted Buzzfeed‘s Deputy Editorial Director, Spencer Althouse. “She is, was, and always will be incredible. I better see her on that stage SOON.”
In Piers Morgan’s “uncensored Oscars awards” piece for the New York Post, the controversial broadcaster criticized Bassett for looking “like she was glugging a vinegar bottle when she heard she’d lost the Best Supporting Actress to Jamie Lee Curtis.” He added that her “abject failure to even pretend to be gracious wasn’t the best ad for her acting skills.”
Although a number of people agree with Morgan’s opinion, many defended the actress for expressing her feelings at that time. “It’s amazing how some people look at Angela Bassett in this picture and see ‘sore loser,'” one said. “I look at the picture and see hurt and disappointment. And it’s ok to express that in the moment. #StopJudging.”
Another fan pointed out that “people are saying Angela Bassett’s reaction makes her [a] sore loser but no one is talking about Kerry Condon has to catching herself from saying WTF.”
