Liza Minnelli says in her new memoir that she was “inexplicably ordered” to sit in a wheelchair just before presenting her Oscar for Best Picture.
Lady Gaga’s Oscars show with Liza Minnelli wasn’t their first celebrity duet
See how pop star Lady Gaga has forged lasting bonds with show business legends.
Scott L. Hall, USA TODAY
Will Smith’s slap wasn’t the only drama at the 2022 Oscars.
Liza Minnelli, 79, has written in her upcoming memoir, Kids, Wait Until You Hear This, that she was unhappy about being forced to sit in a wheelchair when she accepted Best Picture with Lady Gaga at the 2022 Academy Awards. Minnelli said she was expecting to sit in the director’s chair, but things changed at the last minute.
USA TODAY has reached out to Gaga and the Academy for comment.
“I was inexplicably ordered to sit in a wheelchair or not appear at all,” the Cabaret star claims in the book, according to an excerpt published in People magazine on February 20.
“I was told it was because of my age, for safety reasons, because I might slip out of the director’s chair, but that was bullshit. I said, ‘I won’t be treated like that.’ My co-presenter insisted that she wouldn’t come on stage with me unless I was in a wheelchair.”
Minnelli added: “Heartbroken.”
On March 27, 2022, Minnelli joined Lady Gaga on stage to present the Best Picture Oscar to CODA.
At the time, Gaga was standing and Minnelli was sitting next to her in a wheelchair, and the “Poker Face” singer said she was honored to be with “a true show business legend.” The appearance was made in honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 musical film Cabaret, for which Minnelli won an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Minnelli had a card with her presentation script written on it, but appeared to be reading from a teleprompter as she introduced a montage of the Best Picture nominees. Minnelli looked confused for a moment and Gaga could be heard telling her, “I got it,” as she bent over, but the moment was widely seen as heartwarming. The pop star held Minnelli’s hand and knelt down to open the envelope so Minnelli could read the winner.
Minnelli reportedly wrote in her memoir, which will be published on March 10, that she had difficulty reading the teleprompter because she had to sit in a wheelchair “much lower than I would sit in a director’s chair.”
“How would you feel if you were wheeled out against your will to perform in front of a live audience, and you couldn’t see clearly?” she says in an excerpt from her book in People magazine. “So when I stumbled over a few words, Gaga, who was by my side, didn’t miss a beat to play the kindhearted hero for the whole world to see. ‘Okay,’ she said, bending over me.”
The best photo presentation with Minnelli took place at the end of the same ceremony, when Smith slapped Chris Rock for joking about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia. As a result, Smith was banned from attending the Oscars for 10 years.
Weeks after the awards ceremony, Minnelli’s friend Michael Feinstein claimed that he was dissatisfied with the way the Best Picture ceremony was run. Minnelli’s memoir is based on interviews with Feinstein.
While appearing on The Jess Cagle Show in 2022, Feinstein, who attended the Oscars with Minnelli, claimed that Minnelli had been subjected to “sabotage.”
“She agreed to appear at the Oscars only if she sat in the director’s chair. She has back problems and said, ‘I don’t want people to see me walking outside with a limp,'” he said. “She said, ‘I want to look good. I don’t want people to worry about me.’
Feinstein added: “Five minutes before she went on stage, she was sitting in the director’s chair over there, and I think we were all shaken up from everything that had happened earlier with[Will Smith]and the stage manager said, ‘Well, she’s going to have to be in a wheelchair.'” And Liza begged. She said, “No.” People will never see me in a wheelchair in front of everyone. I won’t do this. I refuse this. And they said, “Well, it’s either that or nothing.” ”
Feinstein said Minnelli eventually relented and agreed to sit in a wheelchair, but was “very upset” by the situation and “looked like there was nothing she could do.”
