Denzel Washington was 'bitter' after losing two Oscars

20 November 2024

Denzel Washington felt "bitter" after losing out on two Best Actor Oscars and stopped voting for the Academy Awards as he indulged in a "pity party".

Denzel Washington indulged in a pity party after losing out on two Oscars

The 'Training Day' star won his first Oscar for 1989 drama 'Glory' in the Best Supporting Actor category but he went on to miss out on the Best Actor prize for 'Malcolm X' when he was pitched against 'Scent of a Woman' star Al Pacino in 1993 and he lost again in 2000 when he was nominated for 'Hurricane' and the top gong went to Kevin Space for 'American Beauty' - and Denzel admits it was a tough loss.

He told Esquire magazine: "At the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey’s name for ‘American Beauty'. I have a memory of turning around and looking at him, and nobody was standing but the people around him.

"And everyone else was looking at me. Not that it was this way. Maybe that’s the way I perceived it. Maybe I felt like everybody was looking at me. Because why would everybody be looking at me? Thinking about it now, I don’t think they were.

"I’m sure I went home and drank that night. I had to. I don’t want to sound like: 'Oh, he won my Oscar', or anything like that. It wasn’t like that."

Denzel began to resent the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he got his wife to vote for the winners instead.

He added: "I went through a time then when [my wife] Pauletta would watch all the Oscar movies - I told her: 'I don’t care about that. Hey. They don’t care about me? I don’t care. You vote. You watch them. I ain’t watching that.'

"I gave up. I got bitter. My pity party."

However, Denzel went on to make a huge comeback just two years later when he won the coveted Best Actor Oscar for his role in 'Training Day' and he has since received four more nominations for 'Flight', 'Fences', 'Roman J. Israel, Esq.' and 'The Tragedy of Macbeth'.