Oscars flashback: Angelina Jolie declared her love for her brother and Kevin Spacey was the toast of Hollywood — 20 year

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oscars-2000-angelina-jolie-declared-love-brother-kevin-spacey-toast-of-hollywood-225722886.html

While we’re not yet sure what will go down at Sunday’s 92nd Academy Awards, it’s safe to predict that the Best Supporting Actress winner will not take the stage and declare herself “so in love” with her brother — and then kiss him on the lips, with gusto, at an afterparty.

That is where we were at the 2000 Academy Awards — two decades ago. The actress was Angelina Jolie, who brought her brother, James Haven, as her plus-one in a time best described as her pre-Brad Pitt but mid-Elvira period.

The Girl, Interrupted actress had also been kissy with her sibling at the Golden Globes that year — just weeks before. But she amped it up Oscar night and more people were watching (46.52 million, the show’s highest viewership in the last 20 years), so leading her speech by saying, “I’m so in love with my brother right now” didn’t go unnoticed. Nor did, “He just held me and said he loved me. Jamie … I have nothing without you.” Jolie didn’t care about any funny looks she may have gotten over it, going on to kiss him longer and lustier at the Vanity Fair Oscar afterparty, which they attended with their dad, Jon Voight, with whom they’ve had a complicated relationship.

That kiss was all anyone talked about in the wake of the show — and it hasn’t stopped being analyzed. It was called “too close for comfort” and “too family friendly” and their relationship was deemed “overtly affectionate.” Those were the nicer comments about the kiss, which was mocked on Saturday Night Live.

Jolie later criticized her critics, saying, “It wasn’t some odd open-mouthed kiss.” She was disappointed “something so beautiful and pure could be turned into a circus.” (She never gave a more detailed explanation, but a friend of her late mom, Marcheline Bertrand, later claimed the siblings arrived to the Oscars after spending all day at the hospital with their cancer-stricken mom. “Nobody in the world knew that they spent the day in the hospital. It was like, ‘Look where we’re at now,’” Cis Rundle recalled. “‘Here we are.' They only ever had each other.”)

There were hints that the 2000 Oscars, hosted by Billy Crystal, might be a weird one. Prior to the show, ballots went missing (USPS error) and then Oscars were stolen (arrests were made). But perhaps the odder things are in hindsight. How someone who was the toast of the night has disappeared from Hollywood amid a scandal. Celebrity couples from back then who now seem so strange together. Justin Timberlake’s natural hair. There were sweet things too — like mini Dakota Johnson, then 10, giving some of her first first red carpet interviews. And Crystal and the late great Robin Williams, who were close friends, sharing a hug.