Ian McKellen corrects Sam Smith, who still can't quite get Oscar stats right
Sir Ian McKellen heard Sam Smith's Oscars acceptance speech Sunday -- and he'd like to clear something up.
While accepting the award for Best Song, Smith referred to an interview McKellen recently did in which the elder actor said that no openly gay actor had won an Oscar. However, Smith mistook that to mean that no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar, which isn't the case at all.
McKellen tweeted about Smith's flub Monday, taking care to correct the young singer while also congratulating him on the win.
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Smith was made aware of his mistake soon after he left the stage.
During an interview backstage, Smith was informed that he was not the first openly gay man to win an Oscar -- or not even the first openly gay winner in his category. Openly gay Best Song recipients have included, among others, lyricist Howard Ashman, won two Best Song Oscars in 1989 and 1991 for his work on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
A reporter cited Ashman's win to Smith. In response, Smith joked that he "should know" Ashman and that "we should date."
Ashman died in in 1991 from complications due to AIDS.
Smith's fumble also drew ire from openly gay screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar in 2009 for Milk.
The more you know.
Well, except for the fact that Smith is apparently still talking about this -- and getting the stats wrong.
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Yohana Desta was the senior film reporter for Mashable. She is a Northern Virginia native and an American University grad. She enjoys carefully curating her Instagram account and can often be found reading books, going to concerts, watching movies and learning way too much about pop culture.
