40 Of The Most Awkward Golden Globes Moments Ever Caught On Camera

Ansel Elgort and Dakota Fanning were the presenters for “Best Original Song” at the 2020 Golden Globes. And so instead of saying “here are the nominees” Elgort… sang the line. Many people watching the show on Twitter totally winced. But Elgort is set to play Tony in a remake of West Side Story, so maybe (hopefully?) he was just practicing.

Nicole Kidman won Best Actress in a Limited Series at the 2018 Globes for her role in Big Little Lies. That was great for her obviously, but what was not so great was how she missed her husband Keith Urban’s mouth while trying to kiss him. It was weirdly hilarious. But since she gave him a shout-out during her speech we guess their marriage is totally fine.

Back in 1996 Brad Pitt won for 12 Monkeys and his acceptance speech might have, uh, dampened his reputation as one of Hollywood’s sexiest men. During it he thanked the makers of Kaopectate, which is a diarrhea medication, for doing “a great service to their fellow man.” The he was off, very possibly in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

Sometimes the Golden Globes get super weird. During the 2019 ceremony Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh offered free flu shots to the audience — a joke which might hit a little differently now — and brought out some folks in lab coats wielding syringes. Willem Dafoe looked confused and perhaps a little scared, but really can you blame him?

Ewan McGregor provided a crash course in what not to do when he accepted his Best Actor award for Fargo in 2018. He thanked his estranged wife, Eve Mavrakis… and the woman he left her to be with, actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Afterwards Mavrakis told the Daily Mail newspaper, “I did not like his speech…I am not going to say any more.” Oh no.

Someone getting a name wrong at an award show is always embarrassing. However Renée Zellweger arguably avoided the worst in 2020 by at least saying the wrong name on the red carpet rather than on stage. During her interview with Ryan Seacrest before the show, she accidentally called him “Brian” instead. Oops.

When Ryan Reynolds presented at the Golden Globes in 2017, he looked a little bit different to how fans remembered. In fact, he seemed considerably more…orange than usual. Twitter immediately roasted him with spray-tan jokes, including one about him having dyed himself to match co-presenter Emma Stone’s hair.

Melissa Leo beat out Helena Bonham Carter for a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe in 2011. And during Leo’s acceptance speech the camera cut to Carter and she looked like she was committing the ultimate award show faux pas, rolling her eyes. Later she told the media she didn’t mind losing out but really, didn’t she?

Live award shows are heavily reliant on technology, and if something breaks you’re in big trouble. That’s what happened to Salma Hayek and Paul Rudd in 2013. They had to just stand on stage awkwardly, though Rudd attempted to break the tension by asking the audience how they were doing. Then Hayek tried to speak but got cut off by a video. Both actors deserve their own awards for just getting through that painful moment.

Ricky Gervais presented the 2020 Golden Globes and he decided to make a joke about a recently incarcerated fellow celebrity. He quipped, “I came here in a limo and the license plate was made by Felicity Huffman.” Yikes. But the real MVP here was Tom Hanks, whose shocked face at that totally delighted Twitter.

Often awkward things happen on the red carpet rather than at the Golden Globes show itself. In 2018 Al Roker stopped Mariah Carey (alongside Sharon Stone) on her way into the show and asked her about being nominated “again” for a songwriting Golden Globe for the title track of The Star. Carey replied, “I have never been nominated before as a songwriter, and many times men forget that women also write songs so tonight we're in celebration of that.” Oh dear.

No matter how beautiful and famous you are, laughing too much at your own joke will have people rolling their eyes. That’s what happened with Natalie Portman at the 2011 Golden Globes. She made a risqué joke about her husband and laughed… and laughed… and laughed. It didn’t take long for Internet humorists to make videos and memes out of that.

If you don’t know who Tommy Wiseau, he’s the famously odd filmmaker behind “worst movie ever made” The Room (2003). James Franco played him in the Golden-Globe-winning movie The Disaster Artist, and both of them got on stage for the 2018 ceremony. But when Wiseau made a move towards the mic, Franco physically stopped him. Fans weren’t impressed by that at all.

If there’s one thing you don’t want to do at an awards show, it’s wear the same dress as another actress. Yes, even if it’s one she wore a few years ago. Exactly that happened to poor Reese Witherspoon at the 2006 Golden Globes — she had the same gown Kirsten Dunst wore to the ceremony three years before.

Philomena, starring Judi Dench, is quite an emotional true story about a woman who is forced to give up her child for adoption. This made it all the more awkward when Leonardo DiCaprio mispronounced the title as “Philomania” during the 2014 Golden Globe Awards. And of course, it started a meme.

One single awkward embrace can turn into a big viral moment, as Emma Stone unfortunately found out at the 2017 Golden Globes. She tried to give director Damien Chazelle a hug when he won for La La Land, but he was too busy hugging his wife Olivia Hamilton. It turned into a sort of weird three-way hug.

You’d think “John Legend” would be a pretty easy name to spell, but no. During the 2017 Golden Globes the famous singer snapped a photo and showed social media his place card, which read “John Ledgend.” It didn’t seem to put a damper on the evening for him and his wife Chrissy Teigen though.

In 2020 Brad Pitt picked up a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood and cracked a joke about his love life. He said, “I was going to bring my mum but I couldn’t ‘cos any woman I stand next to they say I’m dating them”…and then the camera cut to his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. It’s been years and still at least one cameraman is Team Aniston it seems.

Back in 1980 Bette Midler made quite a shocking joke at the Golden Globes. Namely she compared her own breasts to, well, golden globes. She might have actually been referencing a comment originally made by Joan Crawford, but she’s forever associated with the joke now. At least Twitter wasn’t around back then?

Sharon Osbourne was interviewing Helen Mirren on the 2020 red carpet, then Elton John showed up and things got weird. There was kissing, there was an awkward moment where John sung about Mirren’s body, and Osbourne commented, “I hope that cat thing [Cats] doesn’t win cause it’s crap!” before making cat meowing noises. It was cringeworthy all round.

So, actress Jameela Jamil plays Tahani Al-Jamil in the show The Good Place. Tahani’s hated rival is her sister Kamilah, who overshadows her and gets all the credit. Therefore it was absolutely hilarious to Good Place fans when E! News named Jamil’s character as “Kamilah Al-Jamil” on their 2019 Golden Globes livestream. Was it a mistake? Or a brilliant bit of trolling?

Sylvester Stallone won a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe in 2016 for Creed. Unfortunately, he forgot to thank some of the most important people involved in the movie, namely his co-star Michael B. Jordan and the film’s director Ryan Coogler. He did actually run back on the stage to thank them while the TV audience were seeing a commercial break, but it still caused a tweetstorm.

Maybe someone out there was super mad at Jimmy Fallon, because the minute he stepped out on stage for the 2017 Golden Globes the teleprompter broke. And it was extremely awkward, because Fallon didn’t seem completely sure what to do. He did some impressions to pass the time and the whole audience got secondhand embarrassment.

In 2011 Katey Sagal won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the ruthless Gemma on Sons of Anarchy. Unfortunately, even though other award winners had delivered long thank-you speeches there seemingly wasn’t time for hers, despite Sagal being a first-time winner. She got played off before she’d finished which seemed a bit mean.

While delivering his monologue for the 2020 Golden Globes Gervais decided to make a joke about the long runtime of Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood. Unfortunately the joke was, “Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere and by the end, his date was almost too old for him.” DiCaprio’s girlfriend at the time was Camila Morrone, 22 years old to his 45. It was utterly wince-worthy.

It was entirely men nominated for the Best Director award at the 2018 Golden Globes. So Natalie Portman went off-script and pointed this out before an audience of millions. On stage to announce the shortlist she declared, “Here are the all-male nominees.” There was some cheering, but also a lot of shock that she’d done such a thing.

Poor Andrew Garfield. The Spider-Man actor got on stage at the 2011 Golden Globes and for the life of him could not pronounce the word “inspiringly.” He tried and failed three times. But the audience clapped for him anyway, and he told them “I appreciate the support.” Now that was some inspiringly done applause.

Clearly Gervais and Gibson aren’t friends. During the 2016 Golden Globes Gervais hurled mockery at the actor while bringing him up on stage, leading Gibson to shoot back, “I love seeing Ricky once every three years because it reminds me to get a colonoscopy.” The general feeling seemed to be: Just take it outside.

Many actresses quietly despair of being constantly asked about their outfits on the red carpet. So some of them might have let out a quiet cheer upon hearing what Emma Stone did. At the 2017 Golden Globes Ryan Seacrest asked her, “Talk us through your outfit,” and she responded, “It’s pink and it has stars on it.”

Renée Zellweger won big in 2020 for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the movie Judy. While accepting her Golden Globe she delivered a sweet speech about Garland herself and the importance of her legacy. Unfortunately before she could finish, the “you’re done” music began playing. Rude! But she carried on anyway.

Comedian Jo Koy was the host of the 2024 Golden Globes, and while he was the most brazen presenter in the history of the Award show, his opening monologue was most definitely a flop. As is tradition, the host poked fun at some of the year's nominated films. Still, his knocks at Barbie's research being nothing more than looking at a plastic doll compared to Oppenheimer's "Pulitzer prize-winning" source material felt pretty sexist, and the crowd's silence certainly echoed that.

No-one would have wanted to be in Kate Winslet’s shoes at the 2009 Golden Globes. She got on stage to accept her award for Revolutionary Road and tried to acknowledge her competitors, but only managed, “I’m so sorry Anne, Meryl, Kristin – oh god, who’s the other one… Angelina!” A terrible, terrible moment to forget a name.

Sure, it can be a little awkward trying to read a teleprompter in front of the biggest names in Hollywood, but Costner's "funny" reading of America Ferrera's monologue from Barbie at the 2024 Golden Globes fell about as flat and awkward as possible. This award show is known for giving actors plenty to drink, so maybe The Bodyguard star just took a few sips too many before he presented?

Have you ever seen a gif of Chrissy Teigen sobbing with her teeth gritted? It’s from the 2015 Golden Globes. Her husband John Legend won an award for the film Selma, the camera cut back to her and…well. At the time Teigen tweeted out, “It’s been five minutes and I’m a meme.” And she still is.

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey slammed Hollywood ageism at the 2014 Golden Globes… At the expense of one particular actor. The joke was, “Gravity is nominated for Best Film. It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.” His wife Amal happens to be 17 years younger than him.

One of the most talked-about moments of the 2016 Golden Globes involved a weird interaction between Leonardo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga. She brushed against him as she went to get her award, and he reacted with a sort of angry side-eye. But he wasn’t actually angry, he clarified later, just taken by surprise.

Jennifer Lawrence won a Golden Globe for Silver Linings Playbook in 2013, but upon receiving it joked “I beat Meryl!” Many people took this as a slight against veteran actress Meryl Streep and were furious. But, Lawrence explained later, it was a quote from the 1996 film The First Wives Club and she meant no harm. She declared to David Letterman that year, “I wanted to make a public statement, like: ‘Hey idiots, it’s a quote. From a movie.’”

Renée Zellweger doesn’t seem to have a lot of luck at the Golden Globes. In 2001 she was announced as Best Actress winner for Nurse Betty, but suddenly she was nowhere to be found. It turned out she’d just gone to the bathroom at the worst possible time. Though she’s not the first person to do this — actress Christine Lahti suffered the same embarrassment in 1998.

Joaquin Phoenix won a Golden Globe for Joker at the 2020 awards. Everyone in the room stood up to applaud him… except, weirdly, Beyoncé. It didn’t take Twitter long to make wild speculations. Was she mad at him? Was she tired? Was that massive dress literally holding her down? Alas, we may never know.

World-famous icon Elizabeth Taylor put in an unforgettable performance at the 2001 Golden Globes. First, she starting opening the envelope ahead of time. Then she couldn’t open it at all. Then she announced the winning movie with almost a scream, “Gladiator!” It was awkward but also incredibly funny.