The terrifying curse of Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie — 10 years later
Here’s my pitch for the next Hollywood horror blockbuster.
It’s called “Hellfie.”
The petrifying movie is set on Oscars night, say, a decade ago, as a group of perky celebrities gather for an innocent photo during the awards show broadcast.
All the fame-hungry actors crowd into frame and smile so wide in their tuxedoes and frocks it looks like a final callback for the role of Bozo.
The cutesy pic is a p.r. coup, and gets shared on social media millions of times. The stars’ megawatt grins shout, “Behold, I am rich and famous and beloved and will be forever and ever.”
But, as it turns out, the smartphone is … cursed!
One by one, Satan’s Snapshot wreaks havoc on its doomed subjects: cancellations, high-profile marriage implosions and crumbling careers befall them. The rapt audience leans in as they scream in terror. Think “Black Mirror” meets “The Exorcist.”
Studios, you can mail the check to 1211 Avenue of the Americas.
Because, as Jordan Peele and the late George A. Romero would surely tell you, nothing is freakier than reality.
And that plot, save for the devil bit, is actually what’s happened to the majority of the A-listers in Ellen DeGeneres’ memorable-but-damned 2014 Oscars selfie.
Ten years since the 86th Academy Awards, when the cheery host herded popular stars for a glam picture, so many of the posers’ fortunes have changed for the worse.
Glance at that sweet shot of — yikes! — DeGeneres, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and more today and you’ll witness something akin to a prehistoric fossil recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits.
Those poor stegosauruses.
First, DeGeneres herself was knocked off her Queen of Daytime perch after allegations were made in a 2020 BuzzFeed article accusing the comic of lording over a “toxic workplace environment.” A resulting thread on Twitter, now called X — appropriately resembling a skull and crossbones — dubbed her “the meanest person alive.” Eeek!
An “Ellen DeGeneres Show” source later told The Post, “The stories are all true!” The 19-year-old program called it quits in 2022.
Spacey, meanwhile, was instantly fired from his Netflix series “House of Cards” in 2017 after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of a sexual assault years earlier when Rapp was a teen (a jury found Spacey not guilty).
The “American Beauty” actor then faced numerous other similar charges in the US and the UK, all of which he was acquitted of or have been dropped. Still, his career has never been the same.
I might have a miniseries on my hands.
Because at least one juicy hour should be devoted to Pitt and Jolie’s bitter divorce over “irreconcilable differences” that unraveled into a messy public spat two years post-selfie. An argument allegedly got violent aboard a plane like a boozy Ryanair flight to Ibiza. Their fight over ownership of a French vineyard was hilariously dubbed “The War of the Rosés.”
Speaking of splits, in 2023, Page Six reported that Streep and her husband of 45 years, Don Gummer, have been separated since at least 2017.
Jump-scare!
And then there are the horribly frightening career sharp turns.
In 2014, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Cooper was nominated for his second Oscar (“American Hustle”). Just look how happy and welcomed he is in that selfie. Well, the actor has since been nominated for 10 more (including for films he’s directed and written) and never won.
Kooky Leto has since starred in — now this is truly horrifying — “Suicide Squad,” “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” “House of Gucci,” “Morbius” and “Haunted Mansion.” Trying out a different profession, I suppose, he decided to climb to the top of the Empire State Building.
And Roberts, who was once Hollywood’s biggest superstar, has churned out flop after flop since 2014. Her rom-com “Ticket to Paradise,” co-starring George Clooney, is the only brightish spot in a decade of disappointments.
Thankfully, the four youngest people in the Oscars snap — Lupita Nyong’o, her brother Peter, Jennifer Lawrence and Channing Tatum — remain unscathed. I worry for them.
However, I’m also hard at work on “Hellfie 2: Flash in the Pan.”
