Sunday night was supposed to be a pure celebration. “Golden,” the breakout hit from Netflix’s animated film KPop Demon Hunters, made history at the 98th Academy Awards by becoming the first K-pop song to ever win Best Original Song.
The moment was emotional, overdue by some fans’ accounting, and genuinely exciting. Then the orchestra started playing, and the whole thing unraveled fast. Let’s break down what happened.
A Speech That Should Have Been a Full Circle Moment
EJAE, one of three singing voices behind the film’s central fictional girl group HUNTR/X, spoke first for the seven-person songwriting team. She thanked the Academy, got emotional, and said something that clearly hit home for a lot of people watching: “Growing up, people made fun of me for liking K-pop, but now everyone’s singing our song and all the Korean lyrics. I’m so proud.”
She talked about resilience, credited her family, her manager, the directors, and the cast. It was everything you’d want from a genuinely heartfelt acceptance speech. And then things went sideways.
🔥🚨BREAKING: The Oscars audience erupted in anger and boos when EJAE got emotional as she made history as the first Oscar win for a K-pop song and the academy played music over her as she attempted to speak.
Viewers are currently pissed online, no way to put it lightly. pic.twitter.com/PvTnCoHswN
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) March 16, 2026
When co-writer Yu Han Lee stepped up to the microphone to add his thank-yous, the Oscars’ orchestra began playing him off. He barely got the words “I would like to thank” out before the music kicked in and the show cut to a commercial break. The moment elicited gasps among the backstage pool of reporters.
The Internet Did Not Let It Slide
The reaction online was immediate and loud. The audience inside the Dolby Theatre could be heard booing, and social media wasn’t having it either. Viewers took to X to express their frustration. “That is so disrespectful, people don’t wanna hear Marvel or comedians’ bits, we wanna hear the movie winners, who are so excited and emotional about getting their awards,” one person wrote.
Another added, “What the h– is going on with the timing for the Oscars winners? They’ve been cutting everyone short all night. People are still thanking their families.”
One viewer called it “absolutely disrespectful” and said the Oscars owed the team an apology. Another wrote, “Atrocious of the Academy to cut off the winners of Golden KPop in sharing their winning speech fully.”
The frustration was made worse by a striking contrast that viewers pointed out. Shortly before the Best Original Song announcement, the Best Cinematography winners were reportedly given nearly four minutes for their acceptance remarks.
The K-pop history-makers didn’t get anywhere close to that. The backlash was further amplified by viewers who felt the treatment highlighted broader concerns about representation in major entertainment events.
Records Broken, Trophy Rules Broken Too
Beyond the speech controversy, the win itself came with a few complications that speak to just how unprecedented the moment was. The songwriting team behind “Golden” set multiple records at once. It was the first K-pop song to win an Oscar, the first song with more than four writers to win, and the first Best Original Song winner where not all of the writers would receive an individual trophy.
That last part comes down to an Academy rule. The Motion Picture Academy limits the number of statuettes it awards in the Original Song category to a maximum of four.
Because “Golden” had seven co-writers, the team had to sign an agreement ahead of time acknowledging that they would share fewer trophies between them. They will all be called Oscar winners. They just won’t all get their own statue to take home.
The songwriting team includes EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park. Of those seven, six were born in South Korea.
What Happened Backstage
After the show, EJAE and the team went backstage and got to say what they didn’t get to finish on stage. EJAE spoke to the backstage press pool and elaborated on what the team wasn’t able to finish in their televised speech. “We feel very grateful and very honored. We all worked so hard and this is such a collaborative effort, we just need to thank our directors.”
KPop Demon Hunters had a significant night overall, also taking home Best Animated Feature. The film was directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, and its wins represented a massive achievement for the project and for Korean representation in Hollywood. Director Maggie Kang, in her own speech earlier in the evening, told Korean audiences everywhere that she was sorry it had taken this long.
The speech cut-off left a sour note on what should have been an uncomplicated triumph. The Academy has not publicly addressed the backlash as of this writing. Fans, meanwhile, are still talking.
What do you think?