Liza Minnelli lashes out at the Oscars in her new memoir, “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!” The “Cabaret” icon presented the Academy Award for best picture alongside Lady Gaga at the 2022 Oscars, but Minnelli appeared somewhat disoriented on stage and stumbled over her words. Gaga notably comforted Minnelli in the moment by telling her, “I got you.” Minnelli was in a wheelchair at the time, which she alleges in her book was mandated by the Academy. She had expected to be seated in a director’s chair where she could more easily see the teleprompter but plans changed at the last minute.
“I was inexplicably ordered — not even asked — to sit in a wheelchair or not appear at all,” Minnelli writes. “I was told it was because of my age, and for safety reasons, because I might slip out of the director’s chair, which was bullshit. I will not be treated this way, I said. I was heartbroken. I was much lower down than I would have been in the director’s chair. Now I couldn’t easily read the teleprompter above me.”
“How would you feel if you were wheeled out, against your will, to perform in front of a live audience, and unable to see clearly?” she continues. “So when I stumbled over a few words, Gaga, who was at my side, didn’t miss a beat to play the kindhearted hero for all the world to see. ‘I got you,’ she said, leaning down over me.”
Variety has reached out to representatives for the Academy for comment.
Minnelli notes in her memoir that Gaga came to her dressing room when she heard about Minnelli’s distress over being put in a wheelchair. Gaga asked, “Are you okay?”
“I looked at her and said simply, ‘I’m a big fan,’” Minnelli writes. “I learned this lesson years ago from Mama and Papa. At a moment of high stress, you stay gracious. The winner for best picture that year was ‘CODA.’ I loved the irony of the title for me. Writing my memoir would be my coda, my truth. There’s always a rainbow — if you know where to look for it.”
Minnelli’s “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! publishes on March 10.
