Ellen DeGeneres' internet-breaking Oscars selfie was taken 10 years ago, and wow, has it aged badly
Ellen DeGeneres' widely circulated Oscars selfie was taken on March 2, 2014 — 10 years ago.
The photo once had the internet in a chokehold. How times have changed.
Several of the stars in the photo have become persona non grata, irrelevant, or simply put, uncool.
Ellen DeGeneres' internet-breaking Oscars selfie was taken 10 years ago and wow, has it aged badly.
If your memory needs jogging: while hosting the 86th Academy Awards, the then-ubiquitous television personality gathered a slew of Hollywood A-listers to take a selfie midway through the ceremony.
The photo, featuring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong'o, her brother Junior, Channing Tatum, Kevin Spacey, and a barely visible Jared Leto, went stratospherically viral after DeGeneres posted it to Twitter, garnering more than 2 million retweets by the time the ceremony ended.
For a while, it was the most reposted photo ever. Then, it was the most lazily parodied selfie. Then it emerged that, despite denial from Samsung, which provided the phone for the selfie and shelled out $20 million to sponsor that year's awards, it was an orchestrated marketing stunt to put its new handset front and center.
The revelation that the moment wasn't spontaneous isn't the only reason feelings about the photo have soured. Sure, it sucks to learn that what we believed was an impromptu moment of good-natured A-list fun was a canny form of product placement. But 10 years on, many of the stars in the photos have either become persona non grata, irrelevant, or simply put, uncool.
Let's start with the obvious: Kevin Spacey appears right in the middle, having somehow got himself a seat close enough to the stage to jump into the back of the selfie, despite not appearing in any films that awards season.
His stellar career came to a juddering halt in 2017 after allegations of inappropriate behavior were made against him. Although he was exonerated, cleared of assault charges in trials in the US and UK, he is still enduring a backlash whenever he's platformed.
Then there's DeGeneres herself. Her long-running NBC talk show was hit with accusations of a toxic studio culture, saturated with fear and intimidation, by guests and employees in 2020, leading to huge scrutiny. The series was canceled a year later, and DeGeneres hasn't appeared in a regular TV role since.
Meanwhile, since the photo was taken, former Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have headed to Splitsville, finalizing their divorce in 2019, and things have only got messier since. The two have been locked in a bitter lawsuit over their joint French winemaking estate since early 2022, as well as a custody battle over their children, toward whom Jolie has accused Pitt of being abusive.
What else? Jared Leto may or may not be an aspiring leader of a cult, Jennifer Lawrence had the tide of public opinion turn against her, admittedly for doing little wrong besides being overexposed.
That's something we're seeing happening to Bradley Cooper in real time as he mounts his Oscar campaign for "Maestro." The actor-director is arguably the least cool person in Hollywood right now, thanks to his earnest efforts to make an Oscar-worthy picture, and it seems that every time he opens his mouth, he makes it worse.
There's not much to be said for Channing Tatum, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, et al., except when was the last time you saw them in a movie that excited you?
If another Oscar selfie were to be taken at this year's ceremony, I can't imagine any of these stars would make it in.
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