Photo credit: Viola Davis Twitter
Last night, the awards season kicked off with the 2015 People’s Choice Awards, held at the Nokia Theatre LA Live in Los Angeles.
Although the annual fan-voted show was chock-full of epic performances, celebrity appearances and heartfelt acceptance speeches it was “How To Get Away With Murder” star Viola Davis taking a dig at a recent New York Times story, that got people’s attention.
“Thank you Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers and Peter Nowalk,” Davis said while accepting her trophy for Favorite Actress in a New TV Series. “For thinking of a leading lady who looks like my classic beauty.”
Longtime New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley caused a furor back in September for an article that referred to Shonda Rhimes as “an angry black woman” while discussing the success of ShondaLand dramas. Stanley also received lots of blowback for remarks she made about Davis, when she wrote that the actress was “older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful” than Kerry Washington, who stars in Rhimes’s show “Scandal.”
It’s safe to say that Davis had the last word by addressing the issue on live television in front of well… millions of viewers and Hollywood’s finest.
What do you think of Davis addressing Stanley during her acceptance speech?
