VIDEO: Melissa Leo Drops F-Bomb During Oscar Acceptance Speech
Feb. 28 2011, Published 8:21 a.m. ET
The Fighter’s Melissa Leo should have gotten a bar of soap to accompany her Oscar statuette at Sunday’s Academy Awards, as actress cursed during her acceptance speech after winning the honors for best supporting actress.
"I'm just shaking in my boots here," she said, before thanking her co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale.
"When I watched Cate two years ago, it looked so f **king easy," Leo said in reference to actress Cate Blanchett. (Note: the ceremony was presented on tape delay, and ABC was able to bleep out the offensive phrases.)
Later she apologized for the slip, telling others, "there is a great deal of the English language that is in my vernacular."
Leo wasn't done just yet: the award-winning actress then playfully mocked Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas, who'd presented her with the award, grabbing his cane and hobbling off the stage arm-in-arm with him.
Reactions among her peers were light-hearted: Best original screenplay winner David Seidler (The King's Speech) joked about the slip in his acceptance speech, thanking the Queen of England "for not putting me in the Tower of London for using the Melissa Leo F-word."
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Leo quickly later apologized backstage. "I apologize to anyone that was offended," she said. "It was probably a very inappropriate place to use that word in particular."
Anne Hathaway, who hosted the ceremony with James Franco, told OnTheRedCarpet.com, "I went up to Leo during the break and thanked her.
Watch the video on RadarOnline.com
"I'm like, 'You just set the tone for the show and gave us material forever, so thank you,'" Hathaway said.
This was Leo's second Oscar nomination: she was nominated for Best Actress in 2009 for her role in Frozen River; she did not win that year.
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