The Critics Choice Awards has come under fierce fire for the ‘disrespectful’ way it announced ‘lesser’ awards.
With a range of awards to give out and only a few hours carved out for the ceremony, most awards shows don’t have enough time to announce every accolade during the live show.
But when the Critics Choice Awards decided to hand out some of its awards during the red carpet before hand, it did not go over well with fans.
A clip of E! News host Keltie Knight telling The Secret Agent director Kleber Mendonça Filho and producer Emilie Lesclaux that their film had won the award for Best Foreign Language Film in the middle of a red carpet interview has gone viral on X, as many viewers slammed the ‘uncomfortable’ moment.
‘I have a very special surprise for you. Congratulations, the Critics Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Film goes to The Secret Agent,’ Knight said as she handed a clearly confused Filho the award. ‘You’re winners tonight baby!’
‘Wow,’ Filho said, as Knight started chanting: ‘Winners! Winners!’
‘Did you have any idea?’ she asked the pair, who both said no.
The Critics Choice Awards has come under fierce fire for the ‘disrespectful’ way it announced the ‘lesser’ awards. Host Chelsea Handler is seen on stage during the awards show
A clipof E! News host Keltie Knight telling The Secret Agent director Kleber Mendonça Filho that his film had won an award in the middle of a red carpet interview has gone viral
‘You didn’t have any idea? Oh my God, congratulations. We loved the film,’ Knight added.
Before they had a chance to respond, she turned to the camera and added: ‘We have a lot more show to go so stay put. This is live from E! Critics Choice Awards’ and the clip ended.
‘I absolutely hate that E! is randomly announcing “lesser” Critics’ Choice Award categories live on the red carpet, which is confusing every single winner because they think it’s a bit,’ one user captioned the video on X, where it was viewed more than 216,000 times.
‘Peak chaos. It’s like telling someone they won the lottery mid-traffic,’ scathed another.
‘What a lack of respect to award a film on the red carpet as if it were the result of the lottery! The Secret Agent, like all international films, deserves respect!’ wrote someone else.
‘Worse than happening on the red carpet was the way it was announced. So embarrassing,’ slammed a different person.
‘They really need to air the TV awards in their own ceremony. This was so disrespectful in my opinion,’ read a fourth tweet.
Fans branded the moment as ‘tacky,’ ‘absurd,’ ‘humiliating’ and ‘extremely disrespectful’
‘It’s so disrespectful! And they don’t even let them speak!’ a fifth said.
‘Awful. Extremely disrespectful,’ raged another person, while someone else chimed in: ‘This is like a comedy sketch. Unbelievable.’
‘This is so embarrassing and screams low budget like omg the level of disrespect,’ wrote a different viewer.
Others branded it as ‘tacky,’ ‘absurd,’ ‘humiliating’ and ‘extremely disrespectful.’
The awards show kicked off with a monologue from host Chelsea Handler, which also garnered backlash online.
The comedian, 50, opened the event, which took place at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport in Santa Monica, California, with tons of jokes about the A-listers nominated, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothee Chalamet.
She also took jabs at the various movies up for awards, like Sinners, telling the audience: ‘Sinners is the story of brothers who start this really fun place for entertainment and then vampires show up, suck the life out of everybody and burn it all to the ground. Fun fact, the original name of the main vampire was David Zaslav.’
But as she joked on about Jeff Bezos‘ yacht, Gwyneth Paltrow‘s role in Marty Supreme and even Saudi Arabia, some viewers were not impressed.
Many took to X to share their grievances, with some complaining that the jokes were too over-the-top.
Others were furious that the star revealed the endings of the nominated movies.