Trending Now: Liza Minnelli ‘heartbroken’ from wheelchair stunt at Oscars – Fans React

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Liza Minnelli claimed that she was forced to use a wheelchair while presenting with Lady Gaga at the 2022 Oscars.

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During the broadcast, a wheelchair-bound Minnelli appeared onstage to announce the Academy Award for best picture alongside the Bad Romance singer.

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In her new memoir, Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, the Cabaret star alleged that she agreed to present if she could sit in a director’s chair due to her back trouble. But Minnelli said the show’s producers forced her into the wheelchair moments before she was set to hit the stage.

“I was inexplicably ordered — not even asked — to sit in a wheelchair or not appear at all,” Minnelli wrote, according to an excerpt published by People, Variety and USA Today. “I was told it was because of my age and for safety reasons because I might slip out of the director’s chair, which was bulls—. ‘I will not be treated this way,’ I said. My co-presenter insisted she would not go on stage with me unless I was in a wheelchair.”

Actor felt set up to fail

Minnelli said the moment left her “heartbroken” and led to her embarrassment in front of millions of people watching at home.

“I was much lower down than I would have been in the director’s chair. Now I couldn’t easily read the TelePrompTer above me,” she said.

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After she was wheeled out, Minnelli stumbled over her words and Gaga said, “I got you.”

It became one of the show’s most memorable and heartwarming moments. But in her new book, Minnelli claimed she was being set up to fail.

“How would you feel if you were wheeled out, against your will, to perform in front of a live audience and unable to see clearly?” Minnelli continued in the book, which will be published next month. “So when I stumbled over a few words, Gaga, who was at my side, didn’t miss a beat to play the kindhearted hero for all the world to see. ‘I got you,’ she said, leaning down over me.”

Friend alleged Minnelli was ‘sabotaged’

Afterward, Minnelli said, Gaga asked if she was doing fine following the wheelchair request.

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“I looked at her and said simply, ‘I’m a big fan,’” Minnelli wrote. “I learned this lesson years ago from Mama and Papa. At a moment of high stress, you stay gracious. The winner for best picture that year was CODA. I loved the irony of the title for me. Writing my memoir would be my coda, my truth. There’s always a rainbow — if you know where to look for it.”

Several weeks after the awards show, Minnelli’s friend Michael Feinstein said that the best actress Oscar winner was miffed at how the best picture presentation was handled.

“She only agreed to appear on the Oscars if she would be in the director’s chair because she’s been having back trouble and she said, ‘I don’t want people to see me limping out there,’” he said during an appearance on %7B%22provider_name%22:%22YouTube%22,%22provider_url%22:%22https:%5C/%5C/www.youtube.com%5C/%22,%22object_url%22:%22https:%5C/%5C/www.youtube.com%5C/watch?v=XbYr4pBoFrE&t=100s%22,%22html%22:%22” data-evt=click data-evt-typ=click>The Jess Cagle Show. “She said, ‘I want to look good. I don’t want people to worry about me.’”

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Will Smith slap happened earlier

Feinstein asserted that the now-76-year-old – who is the daughter of the late Hollywood legend Judy Garland and her second husband Vincente Minnelli – was forced out in a wheelchair because the event’s production team were “shaken up” after Will Smith infamously slapped Chris Rock.

“Five minutes before she went on, when she sat in the director’s chair back there − and I guess they were all shaken up because of everything that had happened earlier (with Smith) − the stage manager said, ‘Well, she has to be in a wheelchair.’ And Liza pleaded. She said, ‘No. I will not be seen in a wheelchair in front of everybody. I will not do this. I refuse to do this.’ And they said, ‘Well, it’s either that or nothing.’”

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When she announced her autobiography in 2024, Minnelli promised she would be settling some scores.

“Over dinner one night, I decided it’s my own … story … I’m gonna share it with you because of all the love you’ve given me,” she wrote in a statement. The book will not only touch on her “sabotaged appearance at the Oscars.”

Minnelli will also touch on “a film with twisted half-truths … (and) a recent miniseries that just didn’t get it right … All made by people who didn’t know my family and don’t really know me.”

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! hits stores on March 10.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

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