Doja Cat faced criticism of her Oscars 2025 performance - a rendition of the Shirley Bassey Bond theme Diamonds Are Forever. The rapper, who was taking part in a tribute to Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, divided fans with her performance and was quickly trending on X.
Halle Berry introduced the musical number, which started with Margaret Qualley performing as a dancing Bond girl, followed with Lisafrom K-Pop group Blackpink opening with a performance of Live And Let Die, which was originally sung by Wings, followed by Doja Cat and then Raye, who sang Skyfall, originally sung by Adele in 2012.
Although the rapper received mixed reviews for her performance, there was universal praise for her stunning Swarovski dress covered in a million crystals, which designed in conjunction with her stylist Brett Alan Nelson for her performance.
While some fans described Doha’s performance as ‘perfect’ and said she was ‘killing it,’ praising her versatility, others were more critical of her vocal range and felt the song was the wrong choice for her, with one saying, ‘Doja Cat is a great idea for a Bond tribute but having her sing Shirley Bassey is a losing game.’
Nonetheless, her performance quickly became one of the most-talked about of the night - the Bond montage has already been hyped up with Academy president Janet Yang talking about the performance on the red carpet, describing it as ‘one of the highlights of the show.’ It also coincided with the news that Broccoli and Wilson have handed creative control of the Bond franchise over to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, raising questions over the future of the Bond films.