Sam Smith won an Oscar last night for Writing’s On The Wall, the Bond track he recorded with a guy called Jimmy Napes. So how did his win tumble into a situation where every gay in the land wishes - even more than ever - to have a peek into Olympic diver Tom Daley’s texts?
Here’s how. Winning the award, Sam Smith got up and gave a little speech. As well as thanking the fellow nominees, with a special shout-out for Lady Gaga (he is a Little Monster, after all), he explained that he’d read an article by Sir Ian McKellen which stated, according to Sam:
‘That no openly gay man had won an Oscar. If this is the case, even if this isn’t the case, I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world, I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day, thank you so much.’
It’s a lovely thought, right? But other gay men have won an Oscar, like Elton John and Stephen Sondheim. Ian McKellen’s article was about how no gay man had any acting wins. When Sam was called up on this by a reporter backstage at the post-win press conference, he said: ‘Shit! Fuck that!’
‘Is that actually even better news that this barrier has already been broken?’ the reporter added. But Sam didn’t acknowledge the gay men before him, instead saying: ‘Well, two’s always been my lucky number.’
Then, another out and proud gay male winner of an Oscar, Dustin Lance Black, got in touch with Sam.
Tweeting a link to his 2006 acceptance speech for his screen-writing of Milk, a film about Harvey Milk, a prominent gay rights activist and politician who was assassinated in 1978, Dustin said to Sam:
And who’s Dustin’s fiancé? None other than everyone’s favorite impish orange Olympic diver Tom Daley! We’re not saying the messages will be the best stuff Sam’s ever written, but we definitely want to see them. That an Oscar win can be turned into a tussle over not just who’s done the most for LGBT rights but who gets to knob Tom Daley is pure proof of the starry-spat-y glamour that makes all of Hollywood and its dramas worth their weight in gold statuettes.
Like this? You might also be interested in:
Oscars 2016: 10 Moments You Need To Know About From This Year's Oscars
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.