Gwyneth Paltrow gave undoubtedly one of the worst speeches in Oscar history after her Shakespeare in Love win.
A lot of Academy Award winners get weepy, sentimental and downright ugly in their speeches. One such Oscar winner is Gwyneth Paltrow, who gave an over-the-top speech that began humbly enough before it quickly turned into a sobfest that is often cited as one of the cringiest acceptance speeches ever.
On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Gwyneth Paltrow discussed both the origins of her emotions and the backlash she faced after winning Best Actress for Shakespeare in Love. “I cried and people were so mean about it and I just thought, ‘Wow there’s this big energy shift that’s happening. I think I’m going to have to learn to be less openhearted and much more protective of myself and filter people out better.’…I remember I was working in England…and I remember the British press being so horrible to me because I cried. And they didn’t necessarily know that my father was dying of cancer.” Perhaps they were pulling for Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I? Heck, even Glenn Close was rooting against her!
Gwyneth Paltrow also mentioned the much-feared question of, So I’ve won the Academy Award–now what? “Once I won the Oscar, it put me into a bit of an identity crisis, because if you win the biggest prize, like what are you supposed to do? And where are you supposed to go? It was hard the amount of attention that you receive on a night like that and the weeks following, it’s so disorienting. And frankly, really unhealthy.” Fortunately, she didn’t exactly go the way of Cuba Gooding Jr. or Roberto Benigni or Mira Sorvino, who are also in the class of people who undeservedly won their statues…Really, Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t have that bad of a slump after her Oscar victory. Sure, there’s Duets and Bounce, but there was also The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Royal Tenenbaums and Shallow Hal, which has a bit of a following. That’s without mentioning later successes, like her role in the MCU (which is definitively over, so sorry, Pepper Potts fans) and whatever the hell she’s trying to pull with Goop, which, while a snake oil empire, is still worth $250 million.
What did you think of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Oscar acceptance speech? Does it rank as one of the worst ever? Let us know where it ranks!
