The most memorable Oscar moments of all time!
- Meghan Blumsum
- Mar 9, 2023
- 2 min read
From Hugh Grant's impolite pre-show interview to Angela Bassett's disgruntled response to losing best supporting actress, many of us tuned in to watch the unpredictable event unfold as the 95th Academy Awards were presented last night.
Already having witnessed some of the most iconic controversial moments over the past few years, TheSlotBuzz.com were keen to investigate this further by utilising viewing figures to conclude the most shocking and controversial Oscars moments of all time.
The 10 most shocking moments at the Oscars
The most viewed Oscars moment goes to Will Smith for his astonishing reaction to Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars. As Chris was presenting, he mocked Will’s wife which led to him publicly slapping Chris Rock on live television. Initially shouting “Keep my wife’s name out your f****** mouth!” There were almost five times (53%)* more searches for ‘Will Smith slap’ than for ‘Oscars Award Ceremony’ in the three days after and including the day of the event. This resulted in the shocking moment being watched over 108 million times on Youtube and it has since been reported that Will has been given a 10 year ban from attending any academy events or programmes.
Ranking as the second most viewed Oscars speech goes to Jennifer Lawrence. The ‘Silver Linings’ actress was incredibly shocked when her name was called in 2013 for the best actress title, that she stumbled as she ascended the steps to accept her award. After, she started her acceptance speech in her normal frank tone saying “You guys are just standing up ’cause you feel bad that I fell, and that’s really embarrassing, but thank you.” The moment went viral, now reaching an astounding 15 million views (15,327,834) and her name was found to be searched 4.5 times (56%)* more than ‘Oscars Award Ceremony’ after the event and for the following three days.
Revealed as the third most shocking Oscars speech is Marlon Brando from the film ‘Godfather’. He was honoured by the academy but to everyone’s surprise he declined the ceremony which raked in a whopping 14 million views (14,023,526). Instead, he gave up his spot at the podium to Native American human rights advocate Sacheen Littlefeather, who delivered a statement from the actor stating that he was declining the award because of "the abuse of American Indians today by the film business."
Methodology:
TheSlotBuzz.com were keen to discover the most shocking or controversial moments of all time at the Oscars.
To do so, TheSlotBuzz.com created a seed list of 10 moments described as “shocking”, “controversial” or “unexpected” by scraping articles from reputable sources such as; Vogue, Daily Mail, Rolling Stone and Leisurebyte.
Each moment was ranked by view count taken from the official Oscars YouTube channel, with an exception for Will Smith whose moment was from the official Guardian News YouTube channel.
Through data analytics tool Google Trends, TheSlotBuzz.com were able to discover the increase in search volumes from three days prior compared to three days after and including the day of the event to highlight each moment that wasn’t typical of an awards night.
All data was collected on 06/03/2023 and is accurate as of then, but subject to change.
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