Oscar-winner Frances McDormand had her statuette stolen at a post-show party by a man who allegedly snatched it from her table before he was arrested, police and witnesses said on Monday.
McDormand, 60, won best actress at Sunday’s awards for her role as a rage-filled mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
“Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormand’s Oscar and ran out with it,” said New York Times writer Cara Buckley, who was at the event and live-tweeted the drama.
She said a photographer working for celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck — who was providing the catering — stopped the man and seized the Oscar, before the thief disappeared back into the ball.
The actress “had set it down and was chatting” when it disappeared, according to Buckley, who added that the actress had said to “let him go.”
“We can confirm that an incident occurred at the Governor’s event. There was an arrest made of a Terry Bryant for grand theft,” a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department told AFP.
She wasn’t able to give further details, except to confirm that the 47-year-old suspect had a ticket for the party.
Variety magazine reposted a Facebook Live video it said showed the suspect brandishing the golden statuette he says he won “for music” and joking: “Got this tonight! This is mine. We got it tonight, baby.”
The man, dressed in a tuxedo with hair held back in hairpins, is seen in the 165-seconds of footage posted to the page of a Terry Bryant Djmatari kissing the trophy and allowing bystanders to touch it.
It was the second time McDormand had bagged the best actress statuette following her win for “Fargo” 21 years earlier, and her acceptance speech was a highlights of the evening.