• HUNTR/X’s “Golden” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for eight weeks and won a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Award, and Oscar.
  • One of the songwriters, Yuhan, was awkwardly cut off after EJAE spoke during their acceptance speech.
  • Oscars showrunner Rob Mills has responded to criticism surrounding the viral cut-off and insists their team is trying to find an “elegant solution.”

HUNTR/X’s “Golden” was—and, let’s face it, still is—everywhere after the massive success of Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters. The Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice award-winning track spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also marked the first time a K-pop girl group topped the chart. Now, it’s officially become the first K-pop song to win an Oscar for Best Original Song after EJAE, Rei Ami, and Audrey Nuna took the Dolby Theatre stage for a stellar performance.

The song was written by EJAE (the singing voice behind HUNTR/X’s Rumi), Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu-Han Lee (Yuhan), Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo, and Teddy Park. As five of the songwriters accepted the award on Sunday, March 15, Yuhan was awkwardly cut off mid-sentence as he started to speak after EJAE.

One of the Oscar showrunners and executive vice president of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, Rob Mills, opened up about the moment during a post-show interview with Variety and insisted that they are trying to find “the most elegant solution” to keeping speech runtimes tight.

“One thing, as we post mortem for next year, will be to look at how we’re handling speeches,” he said, adding, “You win the Oscar, you know you go on stage, it could be one person, it could be five or six. Immediately, you’ll see the sort of allotted time we have for them. Do we need to look at it and say, okay, designate one person to speak. Maybe you continue it backstage, and we have a feed on social or something like that. We look at everything and figure out what is the most elegant solution, because it is difficult, especially when you’re cutting somebody off, and it’s their one moment.”

His comments came after fans voiced concerns about how the situation was handled across social media.

“This was probably the biggest moment of his life as an international artist & the Oscars cut off his speech just as he started...” one person wrote, while another added, “This was so rude, I understand time constraints but this isn’t the way to treat a winner. He just pulled out a speech he prepared and got cut off immediately. The team need to apologise immediately to K-Pop Demon Hunters songwriting crew.”

Thankfully, the writers had their moment to speak in the backstage press room when EJAE stepped back to let them share some words.

The Oscars’ official YouTube channel has also uploaded an edited version of the speech, which doesn’t include the cut-off.

Elsewhere in his interview, Rob added, “We talk about it at the award luncheon, that you have this designated time to speak, and it’s difficult.”

As for next year’s ceremony, he added, “I don’t know what the most elegant solution is, but it’s obviously something we should look really, really long and hard at.”