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The 10 Most Awkward Moments From The 2016 Oscars

By Jacintha Webster
Published on: 11:55 PST, Feb 29, 2016

The 2016 Oscars was shrouded in controversy due to the lack of Black Oscar nominees, and it was also packed with awkward moments that set the internet abuzz during the yearly awards.

The best thing about the 88th Academy Awards was that Chris Rock was hosting. Rock played on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and many of his jokes touched on the topic. If there was one thing that saved the Oscars, it was Chris Rock, but there were still a lot of awkward moments. Let’s take a look.

1. The awkward moment with Stacey Dash.

Rock introduced the former Clueless star Dash to the stage, and it was bad from the start. The conservative pundit Dash recently caused controversy when she added her two cents to the #OscarsSoWhite debate and announced Black History Month and the Black Entertainment Network (BET) should be abolished. Dash took to the stage, awkwardly giggled, and said, “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month!” to a stunned and silent audience. The internet did not stay as silent.

2. The awkward moment Chrissy Teigen reacted to Stacy Dash.

Chrissy is renowned for her expressive face and openness to her fans in general. So, of course, she had the best reaction to the awkward Dash moment above.

3. The awkward moment with Sylvester Stallone.

Leonardo DiCaprio finally got his Oscar, but Rocky was down and out. Many people predicted Stallone would win an Oscar for his work on Creed, but he was beaten by Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies.

4. The awkward moment with Mark R.

Mark Ruffalo and Mark Rylance were both nominated for the Best Supporting Actor category. With two Mark R’s there was bound to be confusion if one of them won, which is exactly what happened. Rylance won the Oscar, but Ruffalo momentarily thought he had, and there was pure joy on his face for a few fleeting seconds.

5. The awkward moment with too many Minions.

Minions are cute and very popular with children. But they really have no place to present a whole award for Best Animated Short, especially when Rock had been killing it all night. The most awkward moment was when the winner Bear Story was “announced.” The film name was not read out properly because it was in Minion language.

6. The many awkward camera moments.

The awards are about the film industry, but the Oscars film crew got a bit carried away. There was a lot of panning, zooming and general dizzying movements that left viewers at home a little green. A great example is when Eddie Redmayne presented the Best Actress category. All the nominees behind him were not in the shot, so the cameraperson took the chance to pan across the stage.

[Video via the ABC]7. The bleeping awkward Kevin Hart Speech.

Kevin Hart took to the stage and also seized the opportunity to speak about the lack of black actors nominated for the past two years running, His speech had been carefully prepared, but the producers were having none of it, despite the important problem he was bringing up, he still got bleeped for cursing – it was awkward.

8. The awkward moment Chris Rock Turned on Jada Pinkett Smith.

This was not really an awkward moment; it was brilliant. Chris Rock made light of the fact that so many people boycotted the Oscars this year. He peppered the night with jokes and kept the crowd in good spirits despite the issue at hand.

“Is Hollywood racist? Is it burning-cross racist? It’s a different type of racist. Hollywood is sorority racist. ‘We like you, Rhonda, but — you’re not a Kappa.'”

The best joke of the night was when he brought up Spike Lee, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, and several other African-American actors that had publicly boycotted the Oscars.

“Jada’s boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”

9. The awkward thank-you scroll.

This year, the Academy tried to save time by scrolling the names of people the winner wanted to thank across the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately, it did not work and everyone, except for Leonardo DiCaprio and his climate change speech, was still given the music queue to get off the stage.

10. The microphone height.

This was not so much an awkward moment as it was a cute one. Jacob Tremblay, the 9-year-old star of the Room, was so far away from the microphone that no one could hear him speak. Rock, being the good host he is, came to the rescue with a wooden platform for Tremblay to stand on. “I’m a good person!” Rock shouted and ran off the stage.

Despite all the awkward moments the 88th Oscars was full of great wins, cute moments, timeless reactions, and was all tied together by a hilarious host.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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