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Sam Smith Congratulated Himself on Being the First Openly Gay Oscars Winner… But He Wasn’t

By Lindsey EllefsonFeb 29th, 2016, 1:30 pm

Screen Shot 2016-02-29 at 1.18.18 PMLast night, it was widely assumed that Lady Gaga would win the Oscar for Best Original Song. That theory seemed foolproof once it was announced that Vice President Joe Biden would be introducing her powerful performance of the song she was nominated for, “Til It Happens to You.”

The category ended up producing one of the biggest upsets of the night, however: Sam Smith took home the award for his James Bond theme, “Writing’s On the Wall.” People reacted accordingly.

The chatter was cut short by Smith’s acceptance speech, however, which he dedicated to the LGBT community.

People were receptive to that, at least.

Though, of course, there were still detractors.

But no one served Smith harder than Dustin Lance Black, you see. While Smith was self-congratulatory in his acceptance speech and wondered aloud if it could be true that he was the first openly gay person to receive an Oscar, Black, who received his in 2009 and is engaged to diver Tom Daley, was watching. He was not pleased. 

Smith was misquoting a Sir Ian McKellan interview. McKellan had been referring very specifically to gay actors. Obviously, Black and Elton John are among the openly gay recipients in other categories.

McKellan was generously far less sassy in his response to Smith’s mistake.

Overall, the award for Best Original Song ended up being uncomfortable in a variety of ways. Gaga must have had a very schadenfreude-y morning.

UPDATE — 3:20 pm EST:

The plot thickens. Smith wrote back to Black with this:

That’s shady in its own right, especially the “belated congrats.” Also, the “mix up” could refer to the first-gay-Oscar thing or the texting-someone-else’s-fiancé thing. Black seemed gracious enough, though, and appeared to concede that the hatchet was buried.

Renowned detector of shade Perez Hilton was on hand to stir the pot, as usual, tagging Daley in the exchange.

[image via screengrab]

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