Ellen DeGeneres
The Oscar selfie would no longer exist today
Ellen DeGeneres (front) in the most famous selfie of all time.
© imago/UPI Photo
Some stars wouldn’t make it into the picture today: Ellen DeGeneres’ legendary Oscar selfie is ten years old.
Ten years ago again: on March 3, 2014, the moderator made Ellen DeGeneres (66) took probably the most famous selfie of all time during the Oscars. She went into the audience and gathered megastars like Meryl Streep (74), Julia Roberts (56) and Channing Tatum (43) for a picture. Bradley Cooper (49) pressed the cell phone shutter button.
DeGeneres posted the picture to X, which was then called Twitter, during the show. The selfie quickly became the most shared photo in Twitter history to date, with over two million re-tweets – and overloaded the platform.
The selfie perfectly reflected the spirit of the times. At that time, smartphones had finally become established. The Oxford English Dictionary named the term “selfie” the English word of the year in 2013. Long before Elon Musk (52) took over, Twitter was the digital place to be.
Kevin Spacey and Brangelina: unthinkable in one picture today
Some stars would certainly no longer make it into the selfie today. In the middle, Kevin Spacey (64) laughs into the camera. A good three years later he would no longer be able to laugh. As a result of the MeToo movement that started in 2016, several men accused the actor of sexual harassment starting in autumn 2017. Although the two-time Oscar winner was acquitted in all cases, he is now considered persona non grata in Hollywood.
Brad Pitt (60) and Angelina Jolie (48) can also be seen on the record selfie – although the latter almost completely covers her face with her hand. Under the name Brangelina, the two stars were the glamor couple in Hollywood for many years. They married a few months after the Oscars on August 23, 2014. But Jolie and Pitt divorced in 2016. Today they would only be in the same room in the presence of their lawyers.
What happened to the other stars in the selfie?
And what happened to the other stars in the selfie? Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep are still doing well. The same applies to Jennifer Lawrence (33), even if she is no longer as popular as she was in the time of the selfie. Around 2014, she was the biggest female movie star. Channing Tatum was her male equivalent back then, and his greatest successes also happened a few years ago.
Jared Leto (52) can also be seen. He won the Oscar that night for best supporting actor for “Dallas Buyers Club.” It was his only great moment at the Academy Awards. The “Morbius” star has now only been nominated for the anti-Oscar Golden Raspberry.
Lupita Nyong’o (41) won the Oscar for best supporting actress ten years ago for “12 Years a Slave”. She posed behind her brother and companion Junior, the only non-star in the photo. Lupita Nyong’o established herself as a permanent fixture with the “Black Panther” films at the latest. The Kenyan-born woman was recently chairwoman of the Berlinale jury.
Ellen DeGeneres has also seen better days. Two years ago she gave up her talk show that was named after her. Her image has suffered greatly due to bullying allegations from her former employees.
By the way, the selfie wasn’t as spontaneous as DeGeneres did during the gala: the cell phone manufacturer Samsung paid a lot of money to be present during the Oscar broadcast.