Stars skip Seacrest on the red carpet
E! network hosts treated Oscars as if sexual misconduct doesn’t exist
Ryan Seacrest’s reign as the prince of the red carpet may have ended Sunday night. Usually the E! host is a mandatory stop for Oscar guests on their way into the awards ceremony. Not this year. Perhaps you could say that his time is up.
A recap: On Feb. 26, Variety published accusations from one of Seacrest’s former stylists, Suzie Hardy, who alleged the host had sexually harassed and abused her after she started working for him in 2007. Hardy said Seacrest rubbed his genitalia against her and slapped her buttock hard enough to leave a welt. When she reported him to human resources in 2013, Hardy told Variety, she was let go.
Seacrest has called the accusations “gut-wrenching” and has denied them. E! launched an independent investigation in November after the complaint was first reported and concluded in February there was “insufficient evidence” to support the allegations and therefore they “could not be substantiated.”
Clearly, this would not be a good look for E! at the first Oscars of the #MeToo era, but the network forged ahead with Seacrest in his usual red carpet post. Publicists were said to be advising their clients to avoid him on the red carpet, lest they end up in an uncomfortable position.
On the big night, E! seemed to be pretending that sexual harassment doesn’t exist.
Obviously the network wasn’t going to bring up Seacrest’s allegations, but it seemed to be studiously avoiding mentioning any of the other high-profile Hollywood types who have been accused of sexual harassment.
“What are some of the big stories coming out of the Oscars that viewers should know about?” asked E! host Giuliana Rancic of her co-host Kristin Dos Santos.
Not the #TimesUp movement, not the Harvey Weinstein scandal that shook the entire industry and dominated the news for months — no, the major story, Dos Santos said, was merely the race for best picture. Later, Dos Santos mentioned there has been “so much talk” about the women’s movement this year — but that talk must have materialized out of the mist, because she pointedly avoided discussing why.
Weinstein’s name never crossed her lips. She rattled off some stats about women in Hollywood: “Only four per cent of women are directors ... I find those stats really alarming,” she said.
Later, Seacrest interviewed Canadian actor Christopher Plummer about how he had to quickly step in and shoot All the Money in the World. He didn’t mention that Plummer had to step in because Kevin Spacey, freshly accused of sexual assault, had to be erased from the movie. Seacrest also interviewed a lot of men — more so than woman — and most of the big stars passed him by.
The biggest stars Seacrest did manage to land were Allison Janney and Mary J. Blige.
Meanwhile, over on ABC, hosts were interviewing some of the night’s biggest names, including Daniel Kaluuya, Viola Davis, Margot Robbie, Timothée Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Greta Gerwig and Kumail Nanjiani.