Emma Stone had another star moment during the 96th Academy Awards, winning her second Best Actress prize at Hollywood’s most prestigious awards show. Unfortunately, the spirit of her win has been tampered with somewhat, as some viewers on social media noticed a strange interaction between Stone and the previous winner of the award, Michelle Yeoh. However, Yeoh has taken to social media to clarify the situation and insist there’s no bad blood between the two.
Michelle Yeoh Was Not Offended in the Least
For context, during the 96th Academy Awards, the show decided to mix up how they usually present all the acting accolades. It’s traditional for the previous year’s winner to present an award for acting to the next winner. However, during the 2024 Oscars, the show decided to bring back five previous winners (including the past year’s winner) to briefly introduce each nominee. (This is a similar system to how winners were awarded during the 81st Academy Awards.)
Here comes the controversy: Emma Stone stepped onstage to accept her second Oscar for Best Actress, and viewers seemingly noticed her skipping past Yeoh to instead acknowledge Jennifer Lawrence and Sally Field, two other presenters who were standing beside Yeoh. These viewers perceived this as a microaggression towards Yeoh herself and criticized Stone for not properly acknowledging last year’s winner.
However, Yeoh took to Instagram to clarify the situation, stating that Yeoh had intended to hand the Oscar to Lawrence for Lawrence to hand over, as Lawrence and Stone are well-known to be good friends. In other words, it was a sweet gesture that was executed a little awkwardly and was blown out of proportion.
Yeoh stated,
“I wanted to share that glorious moment of handing over [the] Oscar to you together with your best friend Jennifer!”
Michelle Yeoh via Instagram
Classy, as expected.
