9 Most Awkward Oscar Award Show Moments

The Oscars are a night of glamour and poise for Hollywood’s elite, but occasionally things can get… awkward.

While the prestige is what the Academy Awards are most known for, there are always inevitable moments that have viewers cringing.

Even now, there are probably one or two Oscar moments coming to your mind that you think back on and say to yourself, “yeah, that was painfully awkward.”

Scroll down to check out the top 9 most Awkward Oscar moments!

Jennifer Lawrence Trips… twice

Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress Oscar in 2013 for her role in Silver Lining Playbook, but it was her walk to the stage that made headlines.

On her way up the stairs, Lawrence, donning a lavish white gown, tripped at the bottom and fell forward.

After recovering, the crowd gave her a standing ovation as she accepted her award and joked, “You guys are just standing up ’cause you feel bad that I fell that’s really embarrassing.”

Hilariously, years later Lawrence was caught by cameras falling again, this time out on the red carpet.

John Travolta Gets Handsy With Scarlett Johansson

John Travolta is a serial offender of creating awkward Oscar moments.

The first is the time he engaged in a passing moment of PDA with Scarlett Johansson.

Admittedly, Travolta walking by and kissing her cheek on the red carpet while placing his hand on her waist was more awkward for witnesses than it was for Johansson herself, as she said later that the display was “welcome.”

Still though, it was somewhat of a cringeworthy moment for Oscar viewers.

Angelina Jolie Smooches Her Brother on the Mouth

One of the most notoriously awkward moments to emerge from the Academy Awards show was the time Angelina Jolie gave her biological brother a lingering kiss on the lips.

Not only that, but when she took the stage to accept the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Girl, Interrupted, 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,” she then added.

Awkward is almost not a strong enough word for how that made people feel.

Sam Smith says he was first openly gay man to win an Oscar… but he wasn’t

While this moment wasn’t necessarily “awkward” as soon as it happened, it was certainly awkward in retrospect.

In 2016, singer Sam Smith won the Best Original Song Oscar for “Writing’s on the Wall,” the theme to the 2015 James Bond film Spectre.

Taking the stage, Smith began quoting Ian McKellen from a recent interview, saying, “I read an article that said no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar, and if this is the case, and even if it’s not, I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world.”

Turns out, however, that an openly gay man had won an Oscar before. Back in 1995, Elton John took home the same award for The Lion King’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight.”

Smith was very quickly reminded of this fact by the masses on social media.

When John Travolta called Idina Menzel “Adele Dazeem”

While the spectrum for awkward Oscar moments runs from “Oh I can’t watch,” all the way to “REWIND IT,” this one would fall right around “I’m making a meme of this.”

John Travolta is an iconic Hollywood star who has memorized countless pages of script dialogue, but when introducing Idina Menzel at the 2014 Oscars, he seemed to forget what words were and introduced her as “Adele Dazeem.”

He later tried to explain what happened but it will still very likely go down in history as the most hilariously awkward moment ever to happen on the Oscars.

 

Stacey Dash’s cameo

Stacey Dash is not necessarily an awkward person by nature (though some could argue that “perception is reality”).

However, when Chris Rock introduced her as “the new director of [The Academy’s] minority outreach programme,” in 2016, she received an incredibly awkward welcome.

Her speech didn’t really make things better either, as the Clueless star turned Fox News commentator, said, “I cannot wait to help my people out — Happy Black History Month!

“When they added ME to increase the diversity, I’m sure many black people rolled their eyes. I’m not ‘black enough,’ they say. But guess what? I’ve heard that all my life,” she also said. “I would rather be a free thinking, black [sic] than a cookie cutter black who thinks — and votes — just like all my friends.”

The time Bjork “layed an egg” on the red carpet

Bjork has cultivated many memorable moments on many different award shows, but she really turned heads at the 73rd Academy Awards.

The singer was nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar, along with Lars von Trier and Sjon Sigurdsson, for the tune “I’ve Seen It All” from the film Dancer in the Dark.

As many will remember, this was the event that Bjork showed up to wearing a swan dress complete with fake egg, which she laid down on the red carpet and stood next too.

Ultimately, Bjork walked away without winning the Oscar, but she certainly made a huge, albeit awkward, impact on viewers.

La La Land accidentally named Best Picture winner

This awkward moment really needs no introduction, since it’s one of the most fresh and easily one of the most notable.

We all know the story. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway take the stage to present the award for Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards, there is huge, uncomfortable mix-up, and eventually someone figures out that even though Beatty announced La La Land as the winner, it was really Moonlight that won.

Everyone seemed to have a good attitude about it after the fact, but it felt like it went on forever.

Seth MacFarlane’s ‘We Saw Your Boobs’ song

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane ruffled more than a few feathers with the tune “We Saw Your Boobs,” which was written to jokingly acknowledge all the actresses in attendance at the 2013 Oscars who had previously bared their chests on film.

It garnered a lot of backlash online, but a few of the actresses named in the song agreed to be on-camera during the bit.

One could argue that it was maybe the most intentionally-inappropriate moment ever to take place on the Academy Awards televised broadcast, but no one would argue with how awkward it was.