Oscars 2024 | Michelle Yeoh reveals on social media what led to her “tug-of-war” with Best Actress Emma Stone

If Al Pacino going “rogue” (turns out he didn’t) or John Cena presenting the Best Costume award in anything but an outfit at the 96th Academy Awards wasn’t enough to talk about, there has been some discussion involving last year’s winners, “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” 

In particular, two of its cast who earned plaudits at the 2023 Oscars were involved in two incidents that social media users have been commenting on; one of which being the apparent “snub” Robert Downey Jr. gave last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner, Ke Huy Quan, after winning the award on Sunday evening for his role in “Oppenheimer.” 

The clip saw the actor shake hands and fist jump another on stage while collecting his award, leaving Quan high and dry before taking to the microphone.

The other incident involved the 2023 Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh and her delivery of the Best Actress statuette to this year’s winner, Emma Stone (for her performance in “Poor Things.”) It would seem there was a small tug-of-war between the two before Stone’s acceptance speech; Yeoh kept a firm grip on it and started dragging Stone toward Lawrence, who in turn took it in a somewhat uncomfortable handoff scrum.

But taking to social media since the incident, it would appear that Yeoh - who presented the award alongside former winners Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence - was more excited to be the one to hand her the statuette than any ulterior motive. It was more a matter of confusion.

Yeoh wrote: “Congratulations Emma!! I confused you, but I wanted to share that glorious moment of handing over Oscar to you together with your best friend Jennifer!! She reminded me of my Bae Jamie Lee Curtis ♥️✨ always there for each other!!”

Stone picked up her second Best Actress Academy Award at the ceremony on Sunday, following up on her first win for "La La Land" in 2017