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24 Frames

Oscars: Melissa Leo apologizes for swearing

By Steven Zeitchikwriter 
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Melissa Leo offered one of the most spontaneous moments of tonight’s Academy Awards when she dropped an f-bomb during her acceptance speech for supporting actress. But the 50-year-old said she didn’t necessarily want to draw attention to herself that way.

Backstage, she told reporters she was sorry she let a swear word slip out. ‘Those words — I apologize to anyone if they were offended,’ she said. ‘There’s a great deal of the English language that is in my vernacular.’ She went on to call it ‘an inappropriate place to use that word in particular.’

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The f-word is particularly on the minds of filmgoers this season — the rating for ‘The King’s Speech’ was just downgraded to a PG-13 after the Weinstein Co. removed a few swear words from a key scene with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

— Steven Zeitchik

24 Frames
Steven Zeitchik

Steven Zeitchik is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer who covered film and the larger world of Hollywood for the paper from 2009 to 2017, exploring the personalities, issues, content and consequences of both the creative and business (and, increasingly, digital) aspects of our screen entertainment. He previously covered entertainment beats at Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, has contributed arts and culture pieces to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times and has done journalistic tours of duty in Jerusalem and Berlin. While at The Times he has also reported stories in cities ranging from Cairo to Krakow, though Hollywood can still seem like the most exotic destination of all.

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