Who stole Frances McDormand's Oscar? Here's what happened to man who posted Facebook live posing with trophy
Frances McDormand's 2018 Oscar award was memorable for a lot of reasons. First, it was her second Best Actor win - 21 years after her first one for 'Fargo'. And then she led an applause to all the women in the audience, after asking them to stand up and give themselves an ovation too. But the other memorable part of her Oscars night was a man who was caught on tape holding her Oscar trophy, saying to the camera: 'We did it!' Soon he would get arrested on suspicion of stealing the trophy after the statuette went missing briefly from the after party. Who was that man? Was it all a practical joke? What happened to the charges against him? Let's revisit.
Who stole Frances McDormand's Oscar trophy?
Identified as Terry Bryant, the ticket holder for the venue was arrested on Sunday, March 4, 2018, for grand theft after the statuette went missing from the Governor's Ball, which happens to be the official formal dinner. Then 47, Bryant was booked with bail set at $20,000 and court dates due in the future.
Bryant, who refers to himself under the stage name DJ Matari on various social media pages, has uploaded many songs to YouTube. One of his songs, "Greatness," is available on Spotify. The trophy was soon returned to McDormand and a representative for the actress had quipped to USA Today at the time, "Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together." The actress had allegedly already engraved her name on the trophy -- that she won for 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' -- before it went missing.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Frances McDormand to voice god in Amazon Studios' 'Good Omens'
The Facebook video
Bryant was arrested immediately after he posted a Facebook live, having fun galavanting around with the statuette. “My team got this tonight,” Bryant can be heard saying in the video. “This is mine. We got it tonight, baby.” He then kisses the statue a couple of times, facing the camera, asking, “Who wants to tell me congratulations?” A huge crowd surrounding him gathers to touch the stolen award which he claimed he got “for music.” Soon the video sees him asking people where the parties are happening.
What happened to Terry Bryant?
As of August 2019, charges against Bryant were dropped. A Los Angeles judge had also granted a defence bid to dismiss the case after prosecutors claimed they couldn't proceed. The district attorney's office didn't give any reason either why the case could not move forward. As for the video evidence, Bryant's lawyer hard argued that the suspect had no intention of keeping the award, which was also quickly recovered and returned to the actress it belonged to.