If you question Ariana DeBose’s singing ability, Jamie Lee Curtis will find you and will kill you… with F-bombs.
On Sunday, presenter Bella Ramsey read a pretty mean-spirited joke off a teleprompter during the Critics’ Choice Awards that described Ariana as an “actor who also thinks that they are a singer”.
Considering that the Broadway star won an Oscar for her role as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s remake of the musical West Side Story, Ariana’s fans were outraged — and that included Jamie Lee.
The Halloween star, in a now-deleted post on Instagram that was widely reported on by multiple outlets, unleashed her disapproval.
“Are you fucking kidding me!” the Freaky Friday star reportedly wrote. “Ariana DeBose is a queen.”
Jamie followed that up with two hashtags that emphasised her fucking annoyance, “#backthefuckoff” and “#shutthefuckup.”
It’s unclear if Jamie was referring to Bella Ramsey or the Critics’ Choice Awards in general with her remarks, or why Jamie deleted her post.
HuffPost has reached out to Jamie Lee Curtis’ team for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
On Sunday night, Bella and Anthony Ramos were presenting the award for Best Original Song and began a bit about how the nominees (including This Wish from Disney’s Wish, performed by Ariana) were split between two types of singers. Half of the songs in the category were “delivered by some of the most famous voices in the music industry,” such as Billie Eilish, Lenny Kravitz and Dua Lipa.
“Then there are the actors who also think that they’re singers ― Jack Black, Ariana DeBose and Ken himself, Ryan Gosling,” Bella claimed.
The camera then panned to Ariana, who looked confused.
The situation was pretty weird.
Not only was Ariana the butt of the joke, but Anthony, who was presenting the award with Bella, had worked with the Oscar winner on Broadway before in Hamilton.
The joke also fell flat in its insults of Jack Black, who has sung in the comedy duo Tenacious D since the 1990s, and Ryan Gosling, who got his break singing and dancing on The Mickey Mouse Club and won acclaim in the 2016 movie musical La La Land. The best song winner was I’m Just Ken, Ryan’s song from Barbie.
Yet despite the snarky joke, there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood between Bella and Ariana. The two were photographed hugging at the Emmy Awards the next night, according to numerous outlets.