Honestly, you wait 21 years for your second Academy Award and then someone comes along and nicks the thing.
That’s exactly what happened to Frances McDormand just hours after she collected the Best Actress Oscar for her role in ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ on Sunday night.
Luckily, the culprit - and the statuette - were located by Los Angeles Police, who confirmed Terry Bryant was arrested for grand theft, after the gong went missing from the Governor’s Ball.
The 47-year old was booked and has had bail set at $20,000 (£14,400). He will attend court at a future date.
The Oscar has since been reunited with Frances, who’d already had her name engraved on the statue before it went missing.
A representative for the actress told USA Today: “Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together”.
LAPD said Bryant was a ticket holder for the Governor’s Ball, which is the official formal dinner after the ceremony.
Sunday night’s Oscars belonged to the women of Hollywood, highlighted by Frances, who invited all of the women nominated to stand with her after bagging the Best Actress prize.
She told the audience: “Look around, everybody. Because we all have stories to tell. And projects we need financed. Invite us into your office in a couple days — or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best — and we’ll tell you all about them.”
She concluded her speech with two words, “inclusion rider”, a proposed idea that would require films to ensure that women and people of colour were fairly represented both in front of and behind the camera.
It’s the second time Frances has bagged an Academy Award, 21 years after her first for ‘Fargo’.