Liza Minnelli is opening up about the viral moment at the 2022 Oscars where the now-79-year-old stage and screen legend appeared to stumble over her words while presenting the best picture Oscar alongside superfan Lady Gaga. If you recall, Minnelli, seated in a wheelchair, earned a standing ovation from the room as Gaga stood to the side and applauded her artistic godmother.
“You see that? The public, they love you,” said Gaga as a seemingly confused Minnelli shuffled a stack of papers in her hand and said, “But what am I … I don’t understand.” Gaga quickly stepped in and said, “I got it,” gently placing her hand on Minnelli’s shoulder, as the honorary EGOT star grabbed Gaga’s hand and said, “oh my baby!”
After Gaga gave Minnelli her props on the 50th anniversary of her Oscar-winning role in Cabaret, Liza began to read the copy in the Teleprompter setting up the nominees, stumbling over the words and appearing confused as Gaga sweetly dipped down and assured Minnelli, “I got you.”
Well, there is much more to the story, as it turns out.
In an excerpt from her new memoir, Kids, Wait Til You Hear This (March 10) published by People on Friday (Feb. 20), Minnelli, 79, reveals that the seeming flub was not her doing, and, honestly, she still seems pretty peeved about how it all went down.
Minnelli says she was expecting to sit in a director’s chair for the presentation, but at the last minute she was “ordered — not even asked — to sit in a wheelchair or not appear at all. 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 bulls–t. I will not be treated this way, I said,” she says.
The actress writes that she was “heartbroken” by the decision. “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,” she recalls. “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?”
And so, she stumbled over a few words, praising Gaga for not missing a beat, “to play the kindhearted hero for all the world to see,” remembering those three kind words Mother Monster said as she leaned down in support. Afterward, when Gaga got wind of how distressed Minnelli was by the incident, the “Abracadabra” singer came to Liza’s dressing room to ask if she was OK.
“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.”
Minnelli’s memoir is based on more than a decade of stories and interviews collected by her longtime best friend and pianist Michael Feinstein. It includes tales of her early years taking care of her mother, screen legend Judy Garland, as well as her wild decades in the spotlight, a long struggle with addiction, a string of love affairs — including a tragic, drug-addled marriage to late producer David Gest, whom she calls a “clown” — and her many trips to rehab before getting sober 11 years ago. The book’s co-authors include journalist Josh Getlin and Pulitzer Prize winner Heidi Evans.