The Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey has copped a public lashing from a furious Jamie Lee Curtis, after Ramsey made a questionable joke on stage at yesterday’s Critics Choice Awards.
Ramsey, 20, was on stage with actor Anthony Ramos to present the award for Best Song at the award show yesterday.
Ramsey listed the “famous voices” in the category, among them Billie Eilish, Lenny Kravitz and Dua Lipa.
“And there are the actors who also think that they’re singers: Jack Black, Ariana DeBose, Ryan Gosling,” she continued.
The camera cut to DeBose when her name was mentioned – and the Tony-nominated Broadway star, most definitely a singer, looked more than a little confused at that withering description of her talents.
DeBose took to Instagram after the ceremony to confirm that she was not a fan of the strange wisecrack at her expense.
“No I didn’t find it funny. LOL,” she wrote.
End of story – until veteran actress Curtis came in to bat for DeBose with a stinging post of her own today. Curtis posted footage of Ramsey’s joke to her Instagram account, cut together with several clips of DeBose belting out the high notes during live performances.
“ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME! @arianadebose IS A QUEEN!” Curtis captioned the post, addding the hashtags “#backthef**koff #shutthef**kup” for good measure.
But Curtis’ impassioned defence of DeBose seemed to backfire, as many criticised her for speaking out so aggressively against young actor Ramsey, who was unlikely to have written the joke they were asked to read out.
“bella is 20, reading off of a teleprompter like they were probably told. these hashtags … act your age, honey,” one person wrote.
“I adore you but we know Bella was just reading what was wrote for them!!!!” another person pointed out.
“Please be mad at the writers! You know damn well Bella didn’t come up with that,” another begged.
But it seems DeBose forgave Ramsey at Tuesday’s Emmy Awards, with the pair seen hugging it out in a photo shared on X.
It’s not the first time Curtis has courted controversy with her Instagram account. In October she swiftly deleted a post about the Israel / Palestine conflict after fans pointed out an embarrassing oversight.
In January last year, Curtis shared a photo of her home office on Instagram – which showed a picture on the wall of a seemingly nude child in a box. Fans called the artwork “extremely disturbing,” and Curtis deleted the post.
