Kieran Culkin just made history with his first ever Oscar nomination and win for his performance in A Real Pain. However, his speech seems to have sparked a weird controversy.
Culkin has been experiencing a phenomenal award season with a sweeping victory on almost all major Award functions. As such, his emergence as the victor in this year’s Oscars should have been marked as the best end possible to an otherwise spectacular season.
While it accomplished that, his acceptance speech somehow ended up at the center of a controversy. Interestingly, though, the debate around his speech seems to have born out of nothing but misunderstanding on both feuding factions.
Kieran Culkin’s grand Oscars 2025 victory gets tainted by controversies surrounding his heartfelt speech
As stated above, Kieran Culkin has been raising his victory flag in all the major Award shows this season for his magnificent A Real Pain performance. As a result, him bagging the Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actor category didn’t really shock anyone, except for the actor himself.
In any case, he began his speech by thanking his co-star and director of the movie, Jesse Eisenberg, and gave a major shout out to former Succession co-star Jeremy Strong who was nominated for The Apprentice.
Although things were flowing smoothly for him up until now, things took a turn when Kieran Culkin turned to acknowledge his wife with a sweet and amusing story.
As per People, the actor first professed his love for his wife, stating that the credit for all of his successes goes to her. Moreover, he also thanked her for giving him his “favorite people in the world”. Further on, he urged the organizers to not play the music as he wanted to tell a little story about his wife to the audience.
Referring to his Emmy acceptance speech for Succession (People), Culkin noted how his quip that he wanted “a third kid from her” led people to talk about it incessantly throughout the night.
Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that she promised him a third child on the condition of an Emmy win, as she didn’t think he would bag the award in the first place.
In any case, after the function concluded, she finally realized the situation at hand, stating, “I guess I owe you a third kid”. Culkin, however, pounced on the chance, and stated, “Really, I want four”.
And she turned to me, I swear to God, this happened. It was just over a year ago. She said, ‘I will give you four when you win an Oscar.’ I held my hand out. She took it, and I have not brought it up once, until just now. You remember that, honey, you do? Okay, then I just have this to say to you, Jazz, love of my life, ye of little faith…No pressure. I love you. I’m really sorry I did this again, and let’s get cracking on those kids. What do you say?
Kieran Culkin’s wife, Jazz Charton could be seen in the audience laughing her heart out while proudly cheering for her husband. However, people on the internet had opinions about this specific part of the speech.
The debate around Kieran Culkin’s Oscars 2025 acceptance speech has to be one of the weirdest to date
While many people hailed Kieran Culkin for his banter with his wife, there are people who punched on it to utilize it for their own agendas. For example, conservatives somehow took it to mean that the actor is “pro-choice”.
Moreover, some also noted that if Hollywood actors publicly start joking or encouraging their wives to have more babies, “instead of women using theirs to praise abortion for their success Hollywood could be great again”.
On the other hand, some liberals took offense on Culkin’s wife’s behalf, accusing the actor of misogyny, stating that he was “using his platform to pressure his wife into having additional children that she doesn’t want”.
As a result, a very strange and out of proportionate debate ensued where it didn’t seem like the actor wanted to imply any such thing. Others pointed out that maybe people are just reading too much into his speech, without acknowledging it for what it is. That is, a wholesome, lighthearted banter with his wife.
This is the speech I was talking about. If we return to a Hollywood where men use their acceptance speeches to joke w/ their wives about having more babies instead of women using theirs to praise abortion for their success Hollywood could be great again
pic.twitter.com/2cOXRmwLRl https://t.co/48A4DEfsCo— Megan Basham (@megbasham) March 3, 2025
Or maybe let women use their platforms for whatever they want. And if they don’t want unwanted pregnancies…they are allowed to say so just like we can endure this clip about a man using his platform to pressure his wife into having an additional children that she doesn’t want…
— SheenaBeana📚🐾🐶 (@RevereRomance) March 3, 2025
Anyways here’s Kieran culkin at a pride parade and at a trump protest.
He is not the trad-con you want him to be, please shut the fuck up. You look crazy. https://t.co/qhCESFi4v0 pic.twitter.com/0YHHHteIxC
— Dani|| ᖭི༏ᖫྀ (@Dan0nat0r) March 3, 2025
controversial opinion i don’t think this obvious joke calling back a conversation they already had is an indicator of kieran culkin being a secret misogynist https://t.co/u949FU5Gp6
— saber | free palestine 🇵🇸 (@cardiganloser) March 3, 2025
He’s not conservative, I think be just wants to have more kids with his wife, which is a thing anyone can want or not want
— Claire Kart (@clairekart) March 4, 2025
The current socio-political scenario of the States somehow has the masses scrutinizing every little thing to an inch of its life. This can sometimes be crucial to unearth problems that seem non-existent on a surface level.
However, this could also end up creating problems where there aren’t any. Kieran Culkin being hailed or slammed for his eccentric acceptance speech unfortunately seems to lean towards the latter.
A Real Pain is streaming on Hulu.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
