Caught with the gold in his hand. A man named Terry Bryant has been arrested for suspicion of felony grand theft after allegedly stealing Frances McDormand’s best actress Oscar at the Governors Ball on Sunday, March 4, Us Weekly can confirm.
“Terry Bryant was arrested for felony grand theft on Sunday, March 4 and is being held on $20,000 bail. Bryant was caught with the trophy that had Frances McDormand’s name inscribed onto it,” an LAPD spokesperson told Us. The Associated Press added that Bryant had a ticket to the party.
New York Times reporter Cara Buckley tweeted a photo of Bryant before he was identified at 1:49 a.m. ET on Monday, March 5.
“Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormand’s Oscar and ran out with it,” Buckley captioned a photo of the alleged thief posing with the Oscar. “Wolfgang Puck’s photographer stopped him, got the Oscar back, and the guy disappeared back into the ball. Apparently Frances has said to let him go. #Oscars #Drama.”
Bryant posted a video on his Facebook page with the Academy Award. “It’s mine! We got it tonight, baby,” he said in the clip from the Governors Ball, which is held at Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles.
McDormand’s rep confirmed to Variety that the Oscar has since been returned to her: “After a brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited last night. They celebrated their reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out.”
As previously reported, McDormand won best actress for her role in for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She invited the female nominees in the crowd to stand during her acceptance speech.
“If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors, Meryl [Streep], if you do it everybody else will, come on,” McDormand said. “The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographers, the composers, the songwriters, the designers … I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentleman, inclusion rider.”
McDormand further explained what an inclusion rider is after her win in the press room.
“There has always been available, to everybody that does a negotiation on a film, an inclusion rider, which means that you can ask for and or demand at least 50 percent diversity in not only the casting but also the crew,” McDormand told reporters. “And so the fact that I just learned that after 35 years of being in the film business . . . we’re not going back. So the whole idea of women trending? No. No trending. African Americans trending? No, no trending. It changes now. And I think the inclusion rider will have something to do with that.”
