Denzel Washington Rejected Oscars 25 Years Ago: ‘I Told Them I Didn’t Care!’

There was a time when Denzel Washington was actively involved in the life of the Academy Awards. However, around the turn of the millennium, a bitter experience led him to distance himself to the extent that he no longer wanted to vote for his peers.

By then, the actor had already won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Glory (1990). In 2000, he was back in the race, this time in the leading category: Best Actor. His portrayal of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, wrongly accused of a triple murder in the biopic The Hurricane, pitted him against Richard Farnsworth, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, and Kevin Spacey, who was favored for American Beauty.

An Evening of Bitter Taste

When Kevin Spacey’s name was finally announced, Denzel Washington experienced the moment as a silent humiliation. He shared in 2024, in the pages of Variety, that the incident affected him far beyond just the disappointment of losing an award. He recalls turning around in the auditorium, feeling as if all eyes were on him—even though he admits in hindsight that this feeling was probably magnified by the emotion of the moment.

Here are his words: “At the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey for American Beauty. I remember turning around to look at him, and nobody was standing up except the people around him. Everyone was looking at me. Maybe that wasn’t the case, maybe that’s just how I perceived it. Maybe I imagined all the eyes were on me, because why would everyone be looking at me? On reflection, I don’t think that was the case.”

This frustration then turned into weariness, and eventually a rejection of the ceremony. For several years, it was his wife, Pauletta, who continued to watch the Oscar-nominated films. He, on the other hand, completely turned away: “I went through a period where [my wife] Pauletta was watching all the Oscar films—I told her I didn’t care. Hey: ‘They ignore me? I ignore them.’ You vote. You watch them. I don’t watch that. I gave up. I became bitter.”

A Victory for One, a Withdrawal for Another

He even admits to having sought solace in alcohol when he went home that night, while refusing to believe he held a grudge against Spacey personally: “That night, I’m sure I went home and drank. I don’t want to give the impression I was like: ‘He won my Oscar,’ or something like that. It wasn’t like that.”

Without dwelling on Kevin Spacey’s victory—whose name would later be tarnished by several accusations of sexual assault, culminating in two acquittals in New York and London—Denzel Washington prefers, he says, “to leave that between Spacey and God.”

“You know, there was talk in town about what was happening on that side of the street, and it’s between God and [Kevin Spacey]. I have nothing to do with that. I pray for him. It’s between him and his creator.”

Distancing Despite Other Triumphs

Ironically, two years after that infamous loss, Denzel Washington would finally win his second Oscar, this time for his role in Training Day, and he would indeed go on stage to receive it. And despite his complicated relationship with the Academy, it would still grant him several nominations over the following decade, notably for Flight, Fences, Roman J. Israel, Esq., and The Tragedy of Macbeth.

His exceptional performance in The Hurricane is available to revisit on VOD or on DVD and Blu-ray.