It’s an age-old saying: A good friend will compliment you at an awards ceremony, but a best friend will find a way to tease you. Case in point: Regina Hall, who managed to seize the opportunity to razz her former Girl’s Trip co-star Jada Pinkett Smith while hosting the Oscars.
During a break between awards, Hall announced a quick pause to the ceremony. Some of the pre-show COVID-19 tests had been lost, she claimed, so the night’s festivities would need to be put on hold for “some quick emergency testing backstage.”
The test subjects, who included Timothée Chalamet, Bradley Cooper, Simu Liu, and Tyler Perry, all had one thing in common—Hall was openly (if jokingly) thirsting after them. Hall also called out Javier Bardem’s name before cutting herself off. “Oh wait, you’re still with Penelope,” she said. “Your test is fine, it says that you’re married—negative.”
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Then came another name. “Will Smith,” Hall said. “You’re married, but you know what? You’re on the list, and it looks like Jada approved you, so you get on up here!”
The Smiths appeared to get a kick out of the joke; at least their on-camera reactions seemed genuinely gleeful. But the skit wound up upsetting another famous spectator—albeit one that might surprise you. As some viewers tweeted about whether the joke of objectifying men on stage was inappropriate, former Senator Claire McCaskill weighed in with her opinion. “Groping women on stage as a joke would be a scandal. Groping men on stage as a joke is not funny. Bad call #oscars.”
Another person to chime in? David Spade, who tweeted and then deleted a shorter version of the same idea: “If this was a male host.”
It wouldn’t be the Oscars without a little controversy about at least one on-stage bit.
