Angela Bassett shared her "disappointment" with losing the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a new conversation with Oprah Winfrey.
In 2023, Bassett, who reprised her role as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, lost in the category to Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
On Winfrey's OWN Spotlight series on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), Bassett shared that she was "gobsmacked" when she didn't hear her name as the Best Supporting Actress award winner. Bassett's disappointment was also visible during the 2023 Oscars telecast when Curtis' name was called.
"I was gobsmacked! I was," Bassett told Winfrey. "I thought I handled it very well. That was my intention, to handle it very well. It was, of course, a supreme disappointment, and disappointment is human. So I thought, yes, I was disappointed and I handled it like a human being."
Bassett added that the grace she delivered in the moment was intended "for myself and for my children who were there with me." Bassett has twins, Bronwyn Golden Vance and Slater Josiah Vance, 18, with her husband Courtney B. Vance.
"There are going to be these moments of disappointment that you’ll experience, but how do you handle yourself in the midst of them?" Bassett continued. "We’re going to smile, we’re going to be gracious, we’re going to be kind, we’re going to party anyway."
Bassett was nominated for her first Oscar nearly 30 years before, in the Best Actress category, for her portrayal of Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to Do With It? One year after Bassett's 2023 loss, she was the recipient of an Honorary Oscar Award.
Acknowledging Bassett after her 2023 loss were her Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan and actor Jonathan Majors, who gave her an onstage shoutout at the ceremony.
